


Hushaby

by glitteringeva



Category: RWBY
Genre: College AU, F/F, F/M, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, Modern AU, No Smut, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, i'm just trash, personal comfort writing, shameless fluff, weiss being a useless lesbian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-02-28 02:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 34,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13261350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringeva/pseuds/glitteringeva
Summary: Yang and Mercury are totally not dating. Just friends who enjoy their time together while being in college. Until something unexpected happens. Meanwhile Weiss is a useless lesbian again.Basically a combination of One Too Many and Bedtime Stories. I'm just trash. If you liked those stories you will probably also like this one. If you like Yang/Merc and don't hate College AUs you probably won't hate it.





	1. Chapter 1

Yang had never understood who Mercury had killed to get this apartment, and why he had even chosen to live here. Why she was even here on a Friday night was the point where she stopped caring. The air was warm when she reached the bedraggled building Mercury lived in, hesitating for a moment before she rang the doorbell and waited. And waited. She sighed and leaned against the door. Maybe he wasn’t even awake. Mercury? No, he usually stayed awake until late at night to watch all episodes of some superhero cartoon show from the 90s or finish an assignment two minutes before deadline.  

She rang the doorbell again and again. It took her ten minutes to get annoyed. She kicked a stack of old newspapers. “Mercury, you asshole”, she groaned. She turned around to walk away. Maybe Ruby was still up and could take her in.

“Still awake, Blondie?”

She looked up. Mercury was standing at the window, looking down at her and even though she couldn’t see his face in the dark she knew exactly what his insufferable smirk looked like right now. “Why aren’t you opening the door?”

“I didn’t know you were here until you started to yell at me.”

“I rang the doorbell.”

“It’s broken. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because you never look at your phone , idiot. Are you going to let me in or not?”

“Wait.” He disappeared. When he came back he tossed something at her. She barely caught his keys before they hit the ground. “See you upstairs”, he said before he disappeared again.

The hallway always smelled like vomit. Yang made sure not to touch anything, or at least not more than necessary. She carefully opened the door to his apartment, trying not to make too much noise in case Emerald was already asleep. She left her shoes by the door and sneaked into Mercury’s room.

He was lying on his bed, his laptop on his lap and the window open. He was watching some cartoon as she had predicted, but he paused it when she closed the door behind her. “Have you even moved today?”

“I let you in, didn’t I?” He moved over when she sat down next to him on the bed. “And I got up this morning, showered, got on Em’s nerves, had breakfast, napped, had Emerald yell at me for not doing the dishes and… yeah, that’s it. What are you even doing here?”

“That guy from the dorm room next to me has someone over and it’s going so well I can’t sleep. He’s always doing that and they’re not going to stop anytime soon, you know next time I’m just going to knock at his door and play the angry girlfriend or something.” She sighed and leaned against the headboard. “Can I stay here?”

“How about we go to your place and return the favour?”

“No.”

“We can still get on Em’s nerves.”

“Shut up or I’ll make you sleep on the couch.” She moved closer and rested her head on his chest. He wrapped his arm around her, running his fingers through her hair. Every time he did that a part of her just wanted to drown in the smell of his shirt and his heartbeat right beyond her cheek. “What are you watching?”

“You can’t keep them apart anyway, can you?”

“I totally can. That’s the spider boy, isn’t he?”

“How didn’t your sister disown you yet?”

She pulled herself up on her forearms and kissed him. His lips were warm, soft. “I can tell you to fuck off in Sindarin.” More or less, but no way he would spot the difference.

“I don’t even know what that is.” He leaned forward to close the laptop. Yang took it and pushed an empty bottle of coke off his bedside table to put his laptop there. “Star Wars?”

“No. But you really need to watch those movies with me.” She kissed him again and he pulled her onto his lap, his fingers softly searching their way beneath her shirt.

“I’ll watch pretty much everything with you if you –“

She put her hand on his mouth before he could say another word. “Don’t say it, you’ll only screw it up.” She pulled her hand away when he started to lick it, giving him a grossed out glare and wiping it on his shirt.

“Deep inside you don’t want me to shut up”, he said.

“Deep inside I want you to take that shirt off.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

 

* * *

 

Emerald brutally woke them up by knocking at the door and yelling at Mercury for leaving his wet laundry in the washing machine since yesterday. He groaned and threw Yang’s bra at the door, then pulled her closer and buried his face in her hair.

“You know you can ruin your washing machine like that, do you?”, she asked.

“She won’t let that happen.”

“I’m so glad I’m not your flatmate.” If she was completely honest with herself she didn’t want him to get up. He was comfortable. Yang always felt like she was sleeping better when she wasn’t alone, it was the reason why she had shared a room with Ruby for so long and was happy with sharing a dorm room with Blake now. Or why she liked the mornings most when she slept in with Mercury, just lying in bed and cuddling without anything bothering them.

“I have to be at work in two hours.” He sighed and pulled her even closer. “Do you want to shower first?”

“You’ll just fall asleep again before I’m back.” Yang kissed his temple and then shoved him away from her. “I don’t have to be anywhere today. Go shower first.”

He sat up. “Coffee?”

“Yes. Put some clothes on before you traumatise Emerald with that view.” She let her gaze wander over his bare upper body for a moment, the abs she definitely was a fan of and the scars he only ever talked about late at night when they were both half asleep.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t risk that.” He got up and grabbed a pair of boxers from the floor, put them on before he left the room.

Yang buried her face in his pillow for a moment. It smelled like him and it should have bothered her how much she liked it. She sighed and sat up, running her hands through her hair. Mercury’s room was messy as always, clothes lying on the floor, empty bottles of coke and bags of crisps lying around, the desk being a mess of textbooks and notes only he understood. She had put on Mercury’s shirt on late at night for trip to the bathroom. She didn’t feel like putting her clothes back on before showering and leaving some fresh clothes at his place seemed more and more like the most rational thing to do, but for whatever reason she was still hesitant to do it. But in this mess she probably wouldn’t find anything anyway.

She was going through one of Mercury’s comics when he came back, a towel wrapped around his hips. His hair was still wet and drops of water ran down her cheek and neck when he leaned down to kiss her. It made her flinch and him laugh. She shoved him away before he could go on with it.

“Em is making breakfast”, he said.

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” She got up while he opened the closet to search some fresh clothes.

Emerald was already sitting at the kitchen table, going through one of her textbooks while Mercury leaned back and sipped on his coffee. Yang’s hair was still wet, still cursing Mercury for not owning a blow dryer, wearing one of his clean shirts with the shorts she had worn last night. She got herself a cup of coffee from the machine and sat down with them, reaching for Mercury’s bowl of cornflakes.

“Can you give me a ride to work?”, Mercury asked.

“I took the bus yesterday. Already had a glass of wine with Blake before our neighbour and his date got home. But we can take the same bus.” She took a spoon of Mercury’s cornflakes and felt like getting sick. “I think you should throw away your milk.”

“No, it tastes fine.”

“I don’t trust you”, Emerald said. “You have ruined your taste buds with all those energy drinks.”

Yang nipped on her coffee, hoping it would calm down her stomach. “Maybe I’m just getting sick”, she said. “Blake had one of those nasty stomach flus last month, I had to make her soup every day because it was the only thing she could eat.”

“It’s probably the milk.” Emerald nipped on her coffee. “I trust you more than him.”

“We still have toast if you want”, Mercury said.

“I’m good.”

They almost missed the bus over discussing the necessity of Mercury buying a new bed on the way to the bus stop. He proposed the option of just having a mattress on the floor and Yang playfully bit his lip when he kissed her to make her stop explaining why that was a terrible idea. She kissed him goodbye when they reached the campus, him heading off to the coffee shop where he worked and her to her dormitory.

When Yang came back to her room Blake was not alone. Her and Ilia were sitting in the corner that Blake had called her happy place, in fact just a bunch of blankets and pillows on the floor where Blake loved to read in the warm light of her fairy lights.

“That’s not your shirt”, Ilia said, smirking at her as if it was a scandalous secret.  

“I’ve slept at Mercury’s place. Our neighbour had someone over again.” Yang took her shoes off and threw her bag somewhere in another corner of their room before she sat down with them.

“How is your boyfriend?”, Ilia asked.

“He’s still not my boyfriend.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve been seeing him for… four years now?” Blake raised her eyebrows. “I’m amazed you got this far without putting a label on it.”

Yang shrugged. “Things are fine the way they are.” She never felt like they needed to be official or start to seriously date each other. It had started as something between a casual affair and friendship, now she would consider them friends who definitely did have sex, but they had never really said they were exclusive or went on a real date. No pressure. No expectations. It worked for both of them. Also she couldn’t risk him running off and stop letting her steal his clothes. “Anyway, do you have any plans for today?”

“Not really.” Blake shrugged “But we thought about having a picnic by the lake tomorrow.”  

“I’ll be seeing my mum for lunch, but if you’re still there when I’m back I’ll join you.”

“We thought about making a campfire anyway”, Ilia said. “So we’ll probably head there in the afternoon.”

“Sounds good.”

“I met your neighbour today”, Ilia said. “He was hitting on me. But with the way he did it I have no idea how he gets to disturb your sleep so often.”

“I think I really don’t like him”, Yang said. “Already, even though I have never met him.”

“He’s a friend of Sun.” Blake rolled her eyes. “Sun said he’d drop a hint.”

“Oh, I hope he does. Next time I will definitely interrupt his date.”


	2. Chapter 2

Yang had to admit one thing, Raven’s authority was something she admired. Watching her make two seventeen year old boys who had been at each other’s throats only a second ago jump apart with nothing but one calmly spoken word, both of them a head taller than her and the broad back of someone who could probably lift her up with one arm, both of them only a parking ticket away from going back to prison, was truly impressing.

“We have iced tea”, Vernal said, sitting down next to her and giving her a bottle of water. At least it was cold. “But don’t ever drink that, it’s horrible.”

“Thanks.” Yang watched the two boys take the dirty dishes to the kitchen. One thing she would never get used to was with how much respect they treated her, simply because she was Raven’s daughter.

“Those two are best friends actually.” Vernal crossed her arms in front of her chest. “But this also happens all the time.”

“I don’t envy you.”

“Be glad you picked a major that has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Well, a friend does Social Work actually.” Which was a horrible idea from start to finish, but Mercury hadn’t managed to get into any other programme.

“Tell your friend to run away before it’s too late.” Vernal got up. “I guess you can go upstairs already, Raven will soon be done here.”

Yang was sure she had spent more time in Raven’s office than her apartment. She sat in the armchair by the window, staring at an art print at the other side of the room. It was Picasso, but she had forgotten the name of the painting.

“I’m sorry you had to wait.” Raven closed the door behind her, tossing her keys on the desk. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Vernal got me water, thanks.”

“Oh, right.” Raven sat down in the armchair across from her. “How have you been?”

“Good.” The first moment was always awkward. Raven acted differently around her than anyone else, and if the others noticed they didn’t say anything. But she was also different when they were alone and even though Yang knew she would always ask this question she never knew what to say. “Busy with university, but I think I’m on the right track with my preparations. Weiss made me a study plan. Ruby is top of her class, Qrow still pulls through with stopping to drink for good. Dad finally got tired of being lonely, you know, with me and Ruby being at university most of the time, so he thought about taking a job at our university.”

“Oh no, really?”

“Yeah.” Yang sighed. “I mean I won’t have to take any of his classes with my major, but… he asked us if it would bother us, and how could I say yes?”

“You know, if he does anything embarrassing just call me, I have plenty of anecdotes that are probably worse than anything you are doing.”

“Please don’t tell me any that are… you know, gross.”

“Do you think I’ll tell you anything that involves me?”

“Oh my god, mum, you’re not making it any better.”

Raven laughed. “Do you remember the time you crashed on Vernal’s couch when you –“

“Don’t remind me.” Yang smirked. “But I’ll definitely hit you up on that offer if I need it.”

“But wouldn’t it be nice if he lived closer? You complained about not being able to visit home often.”

“Yes, I guess.” For a moment Yang asked herself if her mum living a twenty minute drive away from university and her dad soon working here would mean they would meet again. She wasn’t sure if they had talked ever since she had left him. “Maybe it will be fine. It will be nice to have him around more and –“

She was interrupted by Vernal storming through the door, giving Raven a troubled look. “We need you downstairs, Thomas is in the garden shed.”

“Not again.” Raven groaned and got up. “I’m sorry, this will take a while.”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t know what else to say.

Raven grabbed her keys and gave her an apologetic look. “I’ll call you”, she said.

 

* * *

 

“Are you alright?”

Yang looked up. Blake sat down next to her on the blanket, handing her a bag of peanuts. “Yeah, sure. Just tired.” She took the peanuts and leaned back. She had settled a bit away from the others, watching them sit around Jaune and his guitar.

“How did your lunch date go?”

“It went… well I guess.” She shrugged. “I had lunch with her and her teenagers. We talked about university, we didn’t fight… It wasn’t long because something happened with her teenagers, but I think we’re getting somewhere.”

“That sounds good.”

“I don’t know, it’s… sometimes it’s still awkward. I just don’t know if we’re on the right track or not, I don’t know how you’re supposed to act around your mum. It’s going well when we’re alone and talking about something, but we’ve been at this for years now and I still don’t know if it’s okay to call her for her birthday.”

“You’re making progress.” Blake stole some peanuts out of her bag. “You haven’t yelled at her in months.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Do you want to go swimming?”

It was late afternoon, but far from being dark. The water of the lake looked tempting, but not tempting enough right now. Usually she would have loved this, but she was just feeling weird right now and she hated that it still happened every time after she went to see her mum. “I might drive home and ask Mercury if he’s up for movie night – don’t give me that look.”

“Why didn’t you just invite him?”

“This is not his thing. He doesn’t swim and he’s not good at pretending to like someone.”

“You know, I won’t even give you the boyfriend talk this time. I wanted to sleep at Pyrrha’s place anyway. You can have the room for tonight, go call him already.”

Yang smiled and hugged her before she gave her the empty bag of peanuts back. “Thank you, you’re the best. I owe you a favour.”

“Just go already before he finds something better to do.”

 

* * *

 

The lake was beautiful tonight, glistening in the evening sun and looking way more tempting than the scene around her. Ilia tightened the grip around her beer, almost scared to break the bottle.

“Is that still your first?” Sun sat down next to her and pointed at her beer.

“I’m not really planning on getting drunk tonight.”

“Do you think they’ll manage to set up a fire before it’s dark?” Sun pointed at Ruby and Nora who were working on the campfire.

“It looks like they’re just throwing wood on top of each other.”

“Ren’s gonna tell them that this isn’t going to work sooner or later.”

“If they will make it probably depends on how soon he tells them.”

“And that probably depends on how much longer he will be busy preparing the soup.”

“I say they won’t make it.” She sipped on her beer and looked at him. She probably wouldn’t have been here without him. Being alone with Blake or maybe one or two of her friends was fine, but in large groups she always just felt like a drag. Sun was easier. She never felt awkward around him.

“We should get flashlights then. I think we left them all in the car.”

“I can go get them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She got up, leaving her beer bottle standing on the floor next to the blanket she had been sitting on. “Do you need anything else from the car?”

“If you find another blanket bring it along.” He tossed her his keys. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” She could use a couple of minutes without feeling bad about not having anyone to talk to. She turned around.

“Hey, are you going to the car?”, someone said behind her.

 _Oh no, not her_. Ilia kept walking, hoping she would just think she hadn’t heard her.

“Wait! I’ll go with you.” Weiss caught up with her. When Ilia looked at her she was smiling. “I forgot my cardigan in there and I think it’s going to get cold.”

“Sure.” Ilia looked down at her feet.

“Blake always says I get cold too easily. Do you think it’s cold today?”

“I don’t know.” Ilia crossed her arms in front of her chest. Why had the parking place to be so far away from the lake?

“So… how are your studies going? You’re doing social work, don’t you?”

“Weiss!” Ilia turned around without answering Weiss. Blake was out of breath when she caught up with them. “I’ve been looking for you, can you help Pyrrha with the punch? She’s never sure how much of everything belongs in there.”

“She always uses too much alcohol.” Weiss sighed. “Can you bring me my cardigan then?”

“Sure”, Blake said.

“Thank you, I’ll go and help her.” She smiled at Ilia and turned around, walking back to the others.

“Sorry”, Blake mumbled. “I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t have let her go with you.”

“You don’t have to treat me like a raw egg. It’s fine.”

“Are you –“

“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t like her, but I won’t turn to ash in her presence.” Ilia shook her head and tried to smile. It was always hard to lie to Blake. “Let’s just go and get the stupid flashlights.”

 

* * *

 

“Are those pyjama shorts with cats on them?” Mercury leaned against the doorframe, his gaze wandering up and down.

“They’re new.”

“Yeah, I definitely would have remembered those.”

“Do you want to come in or not?” She bit her lip to keep herself from smirking when she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt to pull him inside and close the door behind him. “Take your shoes off.”

“So Blake won’t come home tonight?”

“No.” Yang let herself drop on the bed, spreading out while Mercury left his shoes and backpack by the door. He put his phone on the bedside table next to hers before he lied down next to her, closing his eyes.

“So is this Netflix and chill or –“

“How about Star Wars and you get half of my blanket?”

“You always steal the blanket.”

“Stop lying.”

“I got a second blanket just for when you stay over, but sometimes I wake up and you have both.”

“It’s too warm for a blanket anyway.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her with a sheepish smirk before he rolled himself on top of her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Too warm, huh?”

She laughed. His hair was tickling her cheek, he was heavy on top of her, but it felt comforting. If this friendship was good for anything it was cheering her up in no time, stopping her from thinking about Raven for too long. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m your blanket now.”

“Idiot.” She tickled the back of his neck and he shifted so not all of his weight was on top of her. “We can watch one of your shows if you want.”

“You always forget what happened last time.” He pulled himself up on his forearms and looked at her. “Star Wars is fine. Can I get you out of those shorts?”

“No way.”

“They’re horrible.” He leaned down and kissed her briefly, but when he wanted to pull away she pulled him back down.

“Your lips are soft, did you use my lip balm again?”

“You left it at my place.”

“Oh, I thought I had lost it.”

“Do you have any idea how many of your hair ties I find all the time? They’re everywhere.”

“You should keep them at a place where I can find them.”

“I’ll stuff it all into one of my empty drawers.”

She pulled him down again to kiss him so she didn’t have to reply. It sounded an awful lot like her own personal drawer. Like something serious. Did she even want that?

“Anything wrong?”

“No, why?”

“You seem absent.”

“I’m just tired. I’ll get my laptop before I fall asleep.” She got up. When she took her laptop from the desk and turned around he was lying on his back again, looking at his phone, his grey hair a mess. She smiled and bit her lip before she sat down next to him again. “So Star Wars it is?”

“Your choice tonight.”

“Alright. Don’t fall asleep.” She opened her laptop and felt his fingertips ghost over her knee while he typed something on his phone.


	3. Chapter 3

There was one lecture on Monday morning at 8am that made Yang realise hell was real. She sipped on her coffee and prayed for her stomach to calm down while the most boring professor of them all talked in the most monotone voice of them all about something Yang didn’t even remember anymore.

If she had really caught that flu she would get a week off. Maybe two. It didn’t sound too bad, but it would throw her behind Weiss’ schedule and the flu wouldn’t push any deadlines. Maybe it really was her period. She must have had it at some point last month, but she couldn’t remember when.

The guy sitting in front of her kept gnawing his fingernails. She took another sip of her coffee. Had she even had her period last month? Maybe she was late because of the stress, but she was never _that_ late. Well, no way she could be pregnant, so no worries about that.

_No way, right?_

She took her phone out of her pocket, opening her calendar under the desk. She tried to remember if she had been on her period during any of the events of the last month, any memory of asking for tampons in the restrooms of a club or having dinner with Ruby while dealing with stomach cramps. Nothing rang a bell.

_Oh no._

“If you’re rather staring at your phone than listening you might as well just leave”, the professor said. Yang looked up. All of a sudden everyone was staring at her, including the professor with her dark angry eyes. Oh, yes. She also had a no phones in class rule.

“I wouldn’t have to if this lecture wasn’t so fucking boring.” Yang threw her phone back into her backpack, grabbed the rest of her stuff and got up. Everyone was still staring at her when she left but that wasn’t the reason why her heart was beating so fast.

Outside the sun was shining when she left the building. “Come on, calm down”, she mumbled, biting her lip as she crossed the lawn without even really knowing where to go. What did you even do in situations like this? _Just do a test, Yang_. She took a deep breath. _Just find a drug store and do a test_.

The first issue was that she didn’t even know where to find them. She strolled through the aisles for almost fifteen minutes, trying not to look suspicious before she found them. The light blue box stared at her as if it was a huge joke and when she wanted to grab it she felt like she was having a heart attack and just walked past it.

 _This is ridiculous_.

She went back and grabbed the test, and then grabbed a box of painkillers because she thought then it might feel half as bad. It didn’t. She quickly left the aisle, grabbing a bunch of random items on her way to the checkout. The more she bought the less likely it was the person behind the counter would notice the pregnancy test. It was stupid, the cashier wouldn’t even know her, and probably wouldn’t care.

“You’re up early today.”

She looked up in horror. Behind the counter was Mercury, raising his eyebrows. “The hell are you doing here?”, she asked.

“Second job. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just didn’t expect you here.” She stepped closer and began to drop the items on the counter one by one until she dropped the last three on the floor. “Oh no, don’t move, I got this.” She kneeled down and kicked the pregnancy test under the counter before she picked up the lemon drops and Sudoku magazine and got back up. “How are you?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t sleep because I had to and in an essay this morning and now I’m stuck here until noon. You?”

“I got kicked out of a lecture.”

He chuckled and took a cup of instant noodles to scan it. “What did you do?”

“I was on my phone.”

“I always thought you didn’t like these”, he said as he scanned a bag of peanut flips.

“I don’t, but you do. Gotta give you something so you stop eating my Barbecue chips.”

He smirked and for a moment it looked genuine. She felt like either melting or dying. “Do you always run into drug stores and buy random stuff to cope with being kicked out of a lecture?”

“That’s what the chocolate is for.”

“Are you free for lunch today?”

She wasn’t sure if she would be still alive by lunch. “I have to beg people for their notes from that lecture this morning. Also you’ll just crash on my bed and fall asleep, go home and call me tomorrow.” If she was still alive by tomorrow. She took her purse out and handed him her card. “Can I have a bag?”

“Sure. Anything else?”

“No, thank you.” She took her card and the bag he handed her. “See you.”

“If you still feel bad tomorrow I’ll watch Star Wars with you.”

She felt like crying. Or kissing him. Or praying for her period. “I won’t forget that offer”, she said before she turned around and left.

When she got back to her dorm room Blake was still there, sitting on her bed and making notes in a book. “Is your lecture already over?” She didn’t look up.

“I left early. Didn’t feel too well.”

“Still your stomach?”

“No. Headache.” She dropped her backpack on the floor and let herself drop on her bed.

“Is everything alright?”

“Sure.”

“Yang…” Blake turned around on her chair, looking at her and Yang quickly stared at the ceiling. “What’s up?”

“You’re awful.” She sighed. “I’m just overreacting, that’s all.”

“Did Mercury do anything?”

“I tried to buy a pregnancy test.”

The silence was thick and heavy. “Oh”, Blake said eventually. “You’re…”

“I don’t know. I just panicked this morning because I couldn’t remember the last time I had my period. Then I went to the drug store, wanted to buy a test and guess who the cashier was? Mercury. So I obviously couldn’t buy it or he would have known.”

“Didn’t you use protection?”

“Of course we did, but… I mean I can’t guarantee I didn’t get a bit too careless with it at some point. I don’t know. I never thought something like this would happen.”

“You need to make a test, Yang.”

“I’m probably just overreacting.”

“I’ll go buy you a test.”

“You don’t have to –“

“If I don’t you’ll carry this around with you for two weeks.” Blake got up and slipped into her sandals. “Let’s just get this done before this drives you crazy.”

Yang sat up and looked at her while Blake grabbed her bag. “Thank you”, she said, but Blake just smiled at her before she left the room.

 

* * *

 

“I’ll have an abortion.” Yang leaned her head against the wall behind her. They were both sitting on the floor of their tiny bathroom, waiting for what felt like an eternity. “If it’s positive I’m going to have an abortion.”

“Not that I want to talk you out of it, but don’t you think you should at least wait for the result?”

“It’s just the logical thing to do. Merc and I don’t have anything that even resembles a stable relationship, or it… I don’t know. We get along, but he’s not the kind of guy you have a family with. He’ll never talk to me again as soon as he finds out. If I am anything like my mum I’ll be unable to cope with this even with a partner, but on my own? No, thanks. Also I don’t want to graduate from university and then go into maternity leave right away.”

“But you wouldn’t be alone.”

“I know that. It’s just not how I imagined this to happen.”

“I know.”

“It’s no big deal after all.” She would manage. Just get it done and no one would ever need to know. Especially not Mercury.

“But I’m serious. I won’t leave you alone with that, no matter what you do.”

Yang took a deep breath and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Let’s just see if there’s even anything to worry about.”

“Two minutes left.”

Two minutes sounded like an awfully short time until she had to face the truth. “I can’t wait any longer”, she said and got up. “Eight minutes are as good as ten.” She took the test.

“Yang, maybe it’s not done yet, so you shouldn’t –“

“Two lines.” It felt like they were staring at her. The second one was a bit faint, but it was definitely a line and they had studied the instructions thoroughly enough to know that there was no doubt what this meant. “Don’t hug me or I will start to cry.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I’ll make an appointment, it can’t be too hard.”

“No. Right now.”

Yang took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’d like to get drunk until I don’t know my own name anymore, but I’d just feel worse, even though I’m not even going to keep it. Maybe eat something.”

“I can go and get us something for breakfast.”

“Yeah, that… that would be great.”

“I can also call Sun and ask him to bring us something if you don’t want to be alone right now.”

“No, it’s really not that much of a big deal. I’m fine. Get some croissants if they have any. You know, why don’t we just go out for breakfast? We can ask the others if they want to join us.” She threw the test into the bathroom bin, along with the packaging. She knew Blake was giving her a look that clearly said she wasn’t buying any of her bullshit, but she tried to ignore it as good as she could.

“I’ll call Weiss and see if she has time.”

Yang took a deep breath. “Thank you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Thursday, ten in the morning. Yang wrote the date down as a doctor’s appointment in her calendar. It seemed awfully far away, but by this time next week she would be done with it. Crisis avoided.

“You should tell Mercury”, Blake said.

“We’re not even officially dating.”

“I’ve been telling you to sort that out for ages.”

“He’s not the person for that.” Yang leaned against the headboard of her bed. “I’m not even sure if I want that.”

“Are you in love with him?”

She stared at her hands. Thought about how much she liked to have him around, how often she now used to call him or showed up at his place just because she felt the urge to be in his arms. How she melted every time he smiled at her and how he always made her feel so warm deep inside. “Maybe.”

“Oh, Yang.”

“I’m not stupid. I know this won’t last. I know he’s not the person to have a family with. But I made up my mind anyway. If I tell him this will be over and I don’t feel like ending things with him before I have to.”

“If you say so.”

“He texted me. Asked if I want to come over tonight.” Emerald wasn’t at home and Mercury had only ever said it out loud once, but he never slept well when he was all alone in the apartment. It probably had something to do with his past. She had never said no before.

“Are you sure you want to see him right now?”

“There’s no use in avoiding him. I’m fine, I really am.”

“You know you can always call me, right?”

“Sure.” Yang smiled at her. “And you can ask Pyrrha over if you want, make yourselves a nice evening.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you still sick?”

Yang looked up. She was sitting on his bed, already in her pyjamas, trying to concentrate on the notes of a lecture from last week while he was sitting at his desk and worked on an assignment. He turned around when she didn’t reply.

“You just seem… off.” He shrugged. “I can make you a cup of tea if you want, I think Emerald has some.”

“Yeah, a bit. But you don’t need to get up.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s also about my mum. But I don’t want to talk about it.” She looked back down at her textbook. Something hit her leg and when she looked back up Mercury had turned back around again and a chocolate bar was lying on the bed. She wasn’t even surprised that this apparently was his idea of emotional comfort.

She closed her notebook and after a moment she took the chocolate bar, checked the expiration date and opened the packaging. Mercury was staring at his laptop again and she couldn’t help but to let her gaze wander over him, the way his shirt hugged the muscles on his back and his always messy grey hair. Admitting that she might actually be in love with him, not only to Blake but also herself, still felt weird to her. Scary.

And she was pregnant.

She took a big bite of the chocolate bar to distract herself from that thought. Not for long anyway. The chocolate barely made her feel better, she rather felt like crying right now.

She tried to focus on her notes for maybe ten minutes before she gave up. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she came back she stepped behind Mercury and wrapped his arms around him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “I’ll go to sleep. You can just keep going, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Actually I think I’m done here, too.” His fingers briefly brushed over her arm. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

When she lied down and closed her eyes, waiting for him to come back from the bathroom, she already knew she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept wandering and not thinking about being pregnant was so incredibly hard all of a sudden.

Mercury came back, lied down next to her, turned the lights off and she still felt wide awake. She didn’t feel different. The thought of being pregnant was so absurd, so abstract. She wasn’t even sure how far she was, but it couldn’t be very far. For a moment she thought about looking up how big it was by now, just so she knew, but it was probably a horrible idea.

“You can’t sleep?”, Mercury said all of a sudden.

“How do you know?”

“You keep moving and turning around. You never do that when you’re asleep.”

“Just… thinking.”

He moved closer and pulled her into his arms, his chest pressed against her back. “Still your mum?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t know what else to say. “You know, when I really hated her I was always afraid I would one day be like her, and now that I don’t hate her I’m just not sure if that’s a mistake or if I should either wish or dread to become like her. There are things about her I admire, but do I want to be like that?”

“Who says you even have to become like her?”

“I don’t know. Dad said I’m a lot like her. But maybe I will never know until I have a child in ten years and run away after a couple of months.” And now she was having an abortion. She didn’t dare to think about whether that was actually better or worse.

“You can still worry about that when it actually happens.” He pulled her closer, pushing her hair out of the way, out of his face. “But if anything it’s not a bad position to start. Look at me, being a better dad than my father would be pretty easy. Everything you’d have to do would be to be a mum at all before the kid turns eighteen.”

“But what if I can’t even do that? Or what if I stay and screw it up even worse than my mum did?”

He sighed and shifted behind her. Suddenly his warmth was gone and even though it was a warm night she already missed it. She turned around. He was lying on his back and it was too dark to see the expression on his face. “Yang, you’re not pregnant, are you?” For a moment her heart skipped a beat, but he wasn’t waiting for an answer. “So there is no point thinking about all that now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“No, it’s not about that. But trust me, if you keep thinking about whether you’re like her or not you will end up questioning everything you do and in the end you will either do things and think it was something she would have done, or you do something because it’s the complete opposite of what she would do. It won’t get you anywhere.”

“I know.”

“Just try to sleep.” He stretched out his arm and ran his fingers through her hair. Yang closed her eyes for a moment before she dared to move closer, resting her head on his chest.

“I’m trying.”

His hand was running up and down her spine. “I’m sure you’re not like your mum.”

“But what if –“

He pulled her closer and kissed her. “Sleep.”

She sighed. “Okay.” She closed her eyes, trying to keep still. She couldn’t risk him noticing anything.


	5. Chapter 5

The clinic looked nice. It was right across the road from the small park where Yang was sitting, the entrance looked nice and friendly. Yang was sitting on a bench, pulling her knees to her chest as she tried to make herself get up and walk inside.

The last couple of days had been easy. She had busied herself with work and pushed every thought of this appointment aside. But now she was here and all of a sudden the thought of going inside was so scary she couldn’t breathe. Blake had offered to come with her, but she had told her she didn’t have to and then that she’d rather go alone. It was always hard to lie to herself when Blake was around. It was always harder to push her feelings aside. She had still promised to call her when this was done so she could pick her up. Her appointment had been ten minutes ago.  

“Yang?”

She froze. For a moment she didn’t dare to look up, but that wouldn’t help either. “Hey, mum. What are you doing here?”

“I had an appointment in the clinic. Trying to arrange for one of the doctors to visit us and tell the kids how to use a condom.” She sat down next to her. For a moment she didn’t say anything, Yang kept staring at her feet, praying this wasn’t too suspicious, that she would be able to talk herself out of the situation. “So how far are you in?”

She looked at her and then quickly looked away. “I’m not sure.”

“When is your appointment?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Maybe half an hour.”

Raven sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “No. Maybe.”

Raven got up. “Okay, come on. It doesn’t make any sense talking about it here. They’ll give you a new appointment if you call them later.”

Yang hesitated for a moment, but then she got up and took her bag. “Where are you going?”

“Getting you something to eat, you look like you’re going to pass out any moment.”

Raven spared her of the experience of talking about being pregnant in a crowded restaurant. She pulled into the driveway of some fast food chain and bought Yang greasy fries and a burger. Yang started to eat while Raven was still driving and only now she realised that skipping breakfast had been a terrible idea and how hungry she had been.

Raven stopped the car by the side of the road not too far away. It wasn’t anything special, but probably as good as anything.  At least they were alone, only cars passing by too fast to even notice them.

“Do you know who the father is?”, Raven asked.

Yang took her time to chew on her fries before she answered. She hadn’t planned on this conversation to ever happen. Not with Raven, not with anyone, but having it with her mum was in a way actually quite ironic. “Yes.” She hadn’t been with anyone but Mercury in ages, years in fact. “But we’re not really… together. I haven’t told him.”

“Because you have made your choice?”

“Yes. Or at least I thought I did.” She took a deep breath and leaned back, staring out of the window so she didn’t have to look at Raven. “Did you ever think about having an abortion?”

“Sure, at first. But then I also thought why not? Your dad was absolutely thrilled and I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to do it.”

Her throat clenched. “Did you ever… regret it?”

“Not doing it? No. Never. But I think I wouldn’t have regretted it either way.”

“If I don’t do it I have to… deal with all of this. Telling people, people judging me, graduating while being pregnant, finding a place to live without a job, struggling financially while trying to figure out how to be a mum, a single mum. It’s just not how I imagined my life to play out. But I’m also… not sure. You know, I always wanted kids, I’m just not sure if I can be…” She stopped.

“You’re not sure if you’ll end up like me and run away because you’re overwhelmed with the situation.”

She bit her lip. Maybe Raven wasn’t the best person to talk about this after all. “Kinda.”

“You are too much like your dad to do that.”

Yang started to stuff more fries into her mouth, to calm herself down and so she didn’t have to reply. To make the raging anxiety go away that only got louder and louder. “It’s still inconvenient.”

“We can find a solution for all the reasons you have listed. I paid for your education, I have no issue with supporting you beyond that. You will have help. I’m not trying to change your mind, if you say you really want it I’ll drive you right back to the clinic and get you a new appointment right now, but you have to make that choice for yourself, whether you want it or not.”

“I think I would regret it”, Yang said. “I think if I had an abortion I really would regret it at some point. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just panicking.”

“You know, you don’t have to make that choice right now. Maybe you should see a doctor first and then you’ll still have time to make up your mind.”

“Yes, probably.” So her plan on ignoring it until it was over was definitely not going to work. She took a deep breath. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“I guess I’ll… I’ll call the doctor later and then see what to do next.”

“Do you want me to drive you back to college?”

“That would be great.”

Raven started the motor and for a moment Yang just stared at the half finished fries on her lap before she started to eat again. Maybe that would make her feel better. “You know”, Raven said as she pulled back on the street. “If you need anything you can call me, right?”

“Yeah.” For a moment she felt like it was actually true. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

When Yang opened the door to her dorm room Blake was sitting at her desk, getting up when Yang closed the door behind her. “You didn’t call, how are you?”

“I met my mum in front of the clinic.” Yang left her shoes by the door and sat down on her bed. “I didn’t do it. Not yet at least.”

“Did she talk you out of it or…”

“No, actually she didn’t.” Yang leaned against the wall and pulled her knees to her chest. “She just asked me if I’m sure and turns out I’m not.”

Blake took her tea cup from the desk and sat down next to Yang, giving her the warm cup. “Here, I just made that.”

“Thank you.” Yang had never really understood how Blake could always drink hot tea, even through the summer, but the gesture was comforting.

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see a doctor, then I’ll have to make up my mind.” She sighed. “I guess I should talk to Mercury. You know, if I can’t talk to him about something like this, maybe it’s not worth keeping this up any longer.”

“If he’s such a douchebag he leaves right away he’s not worth your time anyway.”

“Yeah, probably.” Maybe she had kept this up for way too long already. Maybe it had been a mistake all along. “I ask him if I can see him tonight. And when it’s done I’ll order enough food to feed the whole dormitory and watch crappy movies until I pass out.”

“Oh, Yang.” Blake moved closer and wrapped her arms around her. Yang felt like crying, but she just leaned her head against Blake’s shoulder and bit her lip. “I’ll make Sun eat our frozen vegetables so we can fit more ice cream into the fridge.”

“You’re the best.” Yang sighed and took her phone out of the pocket of her shorts. “The worst part about this is that I can’t go out, get absolutely wasted and make out with at least five people tonight in case I do keep the baby.”


	6. Chapter 6

The staircase still smelled like vomit. Yang hesitated for a moment before she opened the door to Mercury’s apartment with the keys he had thrown out of the window for her again.

“Kitchen!”, he said somewhere in the apartment and Yang closed the door behind her. Her heart was pounding way too fast in her chest.

Mercury was cutting bananas. He looked up when she entered the kitchen, smirked and she was almost sure her attempt to look casual had been successful. “Hey. What are you doing?”

“Protein shake.” He pointed at the mixer. The stuff inside looked like the staircase smelled. “It’s for Em. She started to work out again.”

“Are you trying to make it look better with the bananas?”

“She’s not used to the taste.” He shrugged and threw the bananas into the mixer, then closed the lid. It was an old mixer, one of the ones that made earth shattering sounds, loud enough to be confused with a construction side nearby.

“I’m pregnant”, Yang whispered.

Mercury stopped the mixer and opened the lid to peek inside. “Did you say anything?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He closed the lid again and looked at her. “Wait, what?”

“Pregnant. From you. I’m just telling you, because I probably should, I don’t expect anything from you and –“

“Wait.” He looked at her, then scanning the room for a moment before he ran his hand through his hair. “Wait, you… Let’s talk about that in my room.”

She felt like the longer none of them said a word the harder it became to breathe. Everything she wanted was to leave, to get this over with. She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms in front of the chest while he closed the door and kicked some clothes out of the way. “The hell do you mean you’re pregnant?”, he asked eventually. “Is that why you’ve been acting weird for weeks?”

“I haven’t been acting weird for weeks, I only found out a couple of days ago.”

“I don’t know, something was off. I thought you were just stressed out because of Weiss’ weird schedule.” He leaned against the door and looked at her. “And now?”

“What… now?” Whenever she had thought about this conversation she hadn’t expected him to ask that. She had thought about him throwing her out, about him making up excuses, about him trying to talk her into getting an abortion. But not this. “I don’t know yet.”

“I thought you –“

“I know, but… actually I have no idea what happened, maybe I forgot to take the pill one day.”

“So what now?”

“Why are you even asking that?”

“Why –“

“I mean why aren’t you… we’re not even actually dating, I thought you’d just throw me out.”

He didn’t say anything and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. When she finally did he was staring at his feet, the expression on his face serious. “What do you mean we’re not actually dating?”, he said.

She blinked. “Wait, did you think –“

“I mean come on, what else is this supposed to be?”

“Oh my god, I’m so stupid.” Yang sat down on Mercury’s bed, running her hands through her hair. “Anyway, I’ve made a test right after –“

“Oh no, Yang, don’t think you can change the topic now just because you’re pregnant.” He sat down next to her, but she didn’t dare to look up. “You have started this conversation, so we’re going to have it now.”

“It’s completely irrelevant now anyway. We should have talked about it years ago, not now that everything might be changing anyway.” She took a deep breath and looked at him. “So you thought we were dating the whole time?”

“I got a second blanket just because you stay over so often, I thought that kinda said it all.” He shrugged. “What did you think this was?”

“I always thought as soon as I’d even mention… labels, you would run away.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You’re not the… I don’t know. I just didn’t want to risk it.”

“You’re messed up.” She knew what he meant and he was probably the only one who was allowed to say that without her being offended.  

“It’s not that I didn’t want a relationship. It really isn’t about that.”

“I know.”

“You know, if I wasn’t pregnant we could just make out and say we’re officially dating from now on.”

“Why do you want to end things now?”

“I don’t want it.” Now as she said it out loud it really did sound stupid. “I thought you’d run away as soon as I tell you.”

“I’d be really offended if I didn’t know you that well.” She was glad he didn’t say it out loud. That he knew it wasn’t because of him but because of her, that she was scared to expect anything because she was scared of people leaving her. “So what are you going to do?”, he asked.

“I don’t know. I had an appointment for an abortion but then I realised I didn’t think the whole thing through. Now I’m… I mean come on, look at us. We both had parents who absolutely screwed up on parenting, if we end up being just a bit like them this child would be better off without us. This is a terrible idea.”

“Probably.”

“But I can’t give it away. If I have this child I have to keep it. My dad would be so excited, Ruby… so either I have an abortion or I do this whole parenting thing.” She looked at him. “What do you want?”

“If you’re asking me if I want to have a child now then no, actually not. I never really thought about whether or not I ever want to have kids.”

“I want kids, just… not now, you know? I always thought I’d start to consider that in ten years, not earlier. But if I don’t have it maybe I’m even worse than my own mum, at least she waited until I was born before she left.” She took a deep breath. “If I decide to keep it, would that mean that this was it between us?”

He looked at her and for a moment she could see he was as insecure as she was, but then he shook his head. She looked down and then leaned her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment and he leaned his head against hers. For a moment they just sat there until someone knocked on his door.

“Merc, are you done with that protein stuff? You just left it in the kitchen”, Emerald said. “Don’t come out if you’re not dressed, I know Yang is here.”

“No, I’ll be right there.” He kissed Yang’s cheek and got up, opening the door. “I’m almost done with it.”

“I hope so, it looks horrible.” Emerald rolled her eyes. “Hey, Yang.”

“Just don’t look at it when you drink it”, he said before he went to the kitchen. Yang hesitated for a moment, then she followed him and Emerald.

“Yang, would you drink that?”, Emerald asked and pointed at the mixer.

“No way”, Yang said.

“It doesn’t taste too bad.” Mercury took a jar with cocoa powder out of the cupboard. “You wanted this.”

“I think I regret it now.”

Mercury put two spoons of the cocoa powder into the shake and turned the mixer on again. It didn’t make it look any better. “You don’t have to admit it’s delicious”, he said and filled the shake into a glass.

“Are you staying for dinner, Yang?”, Emerald asked. “We haven’t made any plans yet, but I wouldn’t be mad if you two decided to cook something.”

“I feel more like ordering food today”, Yang said. “I want something greasy, maybe pizza.”

“Sounds good to me.” Emerald took the shake with a disgusted face. “Mushrooms and ham for me”, she said before she left the kitchen.

“She’s lovely today, isn’t she?” Mercury filled the empty mixer with water. “Do you want anything? Tea? Water?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks.”

He turned around and looked at her, leaning against the kitchen counter for a moment. “So you’re staying for dinner?” It sounded like he was actually trying to ask something way more fundamental than that.

She shrugged. “I guess.” He wasn’t going to throw her out after all. “I have to text Blake and tell her she doesn’t need to feed be comfort ice cream tonight.”

“You really thought you’d go home without a boyfriend, huh?”

“That’s the first time you ever used that word.”

He looked at her and his lips slowly curled into a smirk. “Is that so?”

“Stop that.” She stepped closer. He wasn’t much taller than her, but when she stood right in front of him she still had to look up to him. “You’re way too smug about this.”

“Come on, you love that.” She rolled her eyes and he leaned down to cup her face in his hands and kiss the tip of her nose. “What do you want to do until dinner?”

“Watch Star Wars?” She leaned her forehead against his. “Can you do me a favour?”

“Sure.”

“No talk about the whole… situation today? I’m just done thinking about it.”

He softly kissed her. “I can’t guarantee I won’t fall asleep again”, he said. “Star Wars seems to be a really long and boring movie.”

“It’s more than one movie and you know that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry. I didn't forget about Blizzard Lizard. Big scene upcoming!


	7. Chapter 7

Yang had never needed alcohol to have fun and enjoy parties, but drinking definitely would have been more fun right now. She knew everyone was staring at her, and she could understand why. She had brought Mercury along on several occasions, but not often enough to make people stop speculating about their relationship.

“You can’t eat all the cookies”, Yang said and stole one out of the bowl he was holding in his hand.

“Stop me.” He smirked. “The ones your sister makes are better.”

“I’ll tell her you said that. But you’re actually right, they’re not even that good. Why do you keep eating them?”

“I’m bored.” He gave the bowl to some random guy who made his way past them towards the kitchen. “Why did I have to come here again?”

“You’re my boyfriend now, so you have to.”

He shook his head. “That’s a bad reason.”

“I want to show you off and someone has to help me not to drink without anyone noticing. I can’t risk anyone getting suspicious.”

“You could just tell them the doctor gave you something for your stomach flu that doesn’t go well with alcohol.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do you normally do on those parties?”

“I flirt.” She pouted. “Actually I can do that without you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Come on, at least act a bit jealous.”

“You’ll come back to me anyway.” He smirked.

“You’re the absolute worst.” She took his hand. “Come on, let’s find the others. You’re boring.”

“You never say that when we’re alone.”

She found Weiss, Sun, Blake, Nora and Pyrrha outside. They were sitting on the terrace and stared at Yang and Mercury when they came closer. Yang was still holding his hand and only let go of it when they sat down next to each other. Admittedly, this was new.

“Is Ruby coming?”, Weiss asked. “I thought she’d come with you.”

“No, she’s having a movie night with Ren and Jaune”, Nora said. “Not quite the party gang.”

“So it’s just us”, Pyrrha said. “And Sun’s friends of course, but they went to get more alcohol. It’s rather a slow start today.”

“I’ll get you two something to drink.” Blake got up. “Because I definitely need another one after the week I had. What do you want, Mercury?”

“Surprise me.” Which meant he didn’t care. Out of all of them Blake was probably the one who knew him best, apart from Yang of course. She just nodded and went inside.

Yang looked at Mercury and everything she wanted to do was to hug him and kiss him, but this _really_ was a first for her. The first time she actually allowed those thoughts in public, the first time she didn’t have to keep herself from acting on it so no one would assume they were a thing. But she wasn’t even sure where he stood on the whole public displayed affection issue. She had never asked him and she didn’t want to risk making him regret his decision not to dump her.

“Are you up for a camping trip?”, Sun asked. “We thought about a weekend trip to that valley Jaune always went to as a child.”

“Sounds awesome. What do you think?” She looked at Mercury, trying to hide how nervous it made her behind a smile. She had never really brought him along on those kind of trips. That was something for boyfriends, not whatever she thought they had been before.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’m always in favour of giving up the comfort of civilisation to sleep in a tent.”

“And you tell me I’m overreacting when I say your mattress is unbearably uncomfortable.” She rolled her eyes but smirked. Sun raised his eyebrows and Weiss quickly looked away.

“Last time I went camping my tent broke down, it rained, I got a horrible cold and didn’t have to go to school for three weeks”, Mercury said. “I would always do it again.”

From everything she had heard about him his dad had never seemed like someone who would go on camping trips with him. Maybe it had been a school trip. She didn’t dare to ask. “This will be fun, but only if you don’t act like it’s the worst thing ever.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“It will be fun”, Pyrrha said. “I haven’t been camping in forever.”

Blake came back, holding three cups in her hands, carefully kneeling down next to Yang. “Rum and coke”, she said. “Just coke for Mercury.”

Yang sipped on her cup. It was just coke, but she had told Blake about rather pretending to drink than risking anyone getting suspicious earlier. She was absolutely sure Blake’s cup contained alcohol though, a lot of it. “Thank you”, she said.

 

* * *

 

When Ilia arrived at the party it was already quite late. She hadn’t even originally planned to come, but Blake had sent her a couple of drunk text messages until Ilia had felt like the only reason she wasn’t going was her stupid fear of socialising and working on that had been last year’s new year’s resolution.

She couldn’t find Blake immediately. The house was full of drunk people and she had a hard time making her way through the crowd. She got herself a drink and when she still couldn’t find Blake she went upstairs. Hopefully Blake wasn’t in trouble, but Pyrrha was with her and she was responsible enough not to let anything happen.

Upstairs it almost seemed quiet. She could still hear the loud music and the voices of other party guests, but not many people had made it upstairs. A few girls played a card game, sitting on the floor in one of the bedrooms and sharing a bottle of vodka. Someone had left the bathroom door ajar and she pushed it open.

“Oh.” She stopped. Weiss was sitting on the floor, wiping the tears from her face and looking at her. “Sorry”, Ilia said, “I didn’t mean to –“

“Blake is outside”, Weiss said. “If you’re looking for her. Well, you probably do.”

“Are you okay?” She felt like not asking would be wrong.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you drunk?”

“A bit maybe.” Weiss looked away. “I know you don’t like me and I’m not sure what I did wrong, but you don’t have to act like you care.”

“I…” She wasn’t wrong. Ilia looked down. “It’s nothing personal, okay?”

“Then what is it?”

The smart thing would have been to make up an excuse, or to just leave, anything but closing the door and sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. But that was exactly what she did. Ilia clenched her fists and then forced herself to relax. “Are you actually aware what shady business your company is involved in?”

“My father.” Weiss stared at her hands. “He is sometimes making rather questionable decisions, I am aware of that.”

“My parents died because of his questionable decisions.” She could feel anger flaring up inside of her again. The worst thing was that she knew saying all these things would only make her feel better for the moment. “The factory they worked in caught fire because you wanted to save money.” There were a lot more things she would have had to say about that matter, but the look on Weiss’ face stopped her.

“I’m sorry”, she said. “I truly am.”

 “If you say so.”

“When I inherit the company I will change things, I promise.”

Ilia shrugged and looked down. “Why are you crying in the bathroom?”

“It’s stupid.” She sighed. “I got a bad grade in an assignment. Don’t laugh. But I worked really hard for this and I don’t know what to do to get better grades in this class.”

“Maybe you don’t have to be the best all the time.”

“Being mediocre won’t get me anywhere if I want to be the head of my grandfather’s company in the future.”

For a moment Ilia just wanted to believe that Weiss would be better than her father, that she would not repeat his mistakes and was actually a good person. But to keep hating her was easier than to be disappointed later on. “You should probably go home, or at least back to your friends.”

“I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“It doesn’t look too bad.” Ilia got up and took a fresh washcloth from the shelves. She soaked it with water and kneeled down next to Weiss. “Here, just wash the make up from your face and you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you.” Weiss got, struggling a bit too much not to stumble to seem sober. For a moment Ilia watched her, how she wiped her make up away with the washcloth, her concentrated expression was she stared into the mirror.

“You look fine.” Ilia got up and opened the door. “Come on, Blake will kill me if I don’t get you back to your friends safely.”

“They’re your friends too.”

Ilia stopped for a moment. “Yeah, sure”, she mumbled.

 

* * *

 

Yang had never expected Mercury to get along with Pyrrha. Maybe it was just because Pyrrha was too nice to not get along with anyone, but while she was throwing herself into the crowd with Blake and Nora, carefully avoiding any drinking games, Blake drinking all the shots people handed Yang and later singing karaoke with her, Mercury was standing in a corner with Pyrrha, talking as if this wasn’t a loud party but a cosy night with friends. Maybe also because apart from secretly-sober Yang they were probably the only people in the room who didn’t drink.

When Pyrrha went to the bathroom with Blake because Blake felt sick Yang stayed with Mercury, leaning against the wall next to him and staring at the crowd, sipping on her coke. “Are you having fun?”

“I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.” He shrugged. “You definitely do have fun. I think everyone has a video of you dancing on the table now.”

“You too?”

“Nah, I have the real thing, that’s much better.” He smirked.

“You know, I have to act drunk.” She left her drink on a bookshelf and moved closer until she stood in front of him. “I always flirt with people when I’m drunk, I really do.”

“Like that? Because you can do better than that.”

“No.” She cupped his face in her hands and pulled him down to kiss him. He laid his hands on her hips and she smirked. “Just let me show off my new hot boyfriend for a minute, okay? Also I’d totally do that if I was drunk.”

“I’m not complaining.” He pulled her a bit closer. “Nora is taking pictures.”

“Let her. She has waited years for this.”

He leaned down and kissed her again. “If you say so.”

“Blake is really drunk.” She kissed the tip of his nose and ran her hands through his hair. “So we probably won’t stay for much longer. Pyrrha can drop you off at home, but as she is probably going to take Blake home with her you can also come with me.”

“Do I get breakfast this time?”

“We still have pizza leftover from lunch.”

“Works for me.”


	8. Chapter 8

The coffee shop was the only place where Ilia could really focus. She liked her roommate, even though she was one of the popular girls, and most of the time she had the room for herself anyway, but alone it was so much easier to get distracted. She loved the smell of fresh coffee and having people around her without having to talk to any of them.

Today she was too late. When she got there she couldn’t find a free table and outside the WiFi never worked. She searched for someone who looked like they might leave any minute until she saw a familiar face. Weiss was sitting in a corner, having one of the tables all of herself.

Well, Blake had told her to give her a chance.

“Are those seats taken?”, Ilia asked. Weiss looked up. “I just want to finish my essay, but all the other tables are full.”

“Of course you can sit here.” Weiss closed a few of her textbooks to make space. “How are you?”

Ilia sat down and took her laptop out of her backpack. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to make small talk. Sitting with Weiss was already a big step for her. “Good. Just… busy. I have to hand in this essay next week and the other classes aren’t getting any less stressful.”

“I know what that feels like.”

She started her laptop and took her headphones out. “Well, complaining won’t make it any better.”

Ilia was used to work with other people around. She had spent hours sitting next to someone else in the library. This wasn’t the first time she was sharing a table with someone. But no one had ever been as distracting as Weiss Schnee. She didn’t even do anything. She just sat there, stared at her textbooks and sometimes typed something on her laptop, brushing white strands of hair out her face from time to time. It was infuriating.

After twenty minutes of not getting anything done Ilia took her headphones off and got up. “I’ll go get a coffee”, she mumbled.

When she got back Weiss was still studying her textbooks, looking up and giving her a soft smile. It almost seemed shy. “The coffee is good.”

“Yeah, it is.” Ilia sat down and sipped on her cup. The worst part was that she knew not liking Weiss was probably irrational, after all it wasn’t _her_ fault. Right now she wasn’t even sure if she really didn’t like her or if she was just trying to convince herself. But she was one of Blake’s best friends, so she had to get along with her. “What are you working on?”

“Tax laws. Not exactly what I’d call interesting.” She shrugged.

“You’re doing business, right?”

“Yes, but I’m also doing a second Bachelor in music.”

“That sounds ambitious.”

“It’s a lot of work.” She sighed. “I spent the whole summer studying.”

“I never manage to do as much as I want over the summer holidays.”

“You’ve spent yours with Blake this year, didn’t you?”

“Her parents always invite me.” It had taken her a while until she had allowed herself to believe it wasn’t just out of pity.

“I only met her mum once, she was really nice.”

“Yes, she is.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –“

“My parents have been dead for almost ten years now. I can handle talking about Kali.” She rolled her eyes. “She is… incredibly nice. Blake’s dad helped me get a scholarship.”

“Didn’t you get…”

“Compensation? They wouldn’t have had to pay me anything, but they offered it. I didn’t want their money.”

Weiss raised her eyebrows. “But they offered it. Not taking it won’t change anything.”

“It would have felt wrong.”

“That sounds a lot like something Blake would say.”

“Maybe because we are both right.”

“I can totally see why you two get along.” Weiss rolled her eyes, but it looked rather playful than anything else. Ilia bit her lip. Weiss didn’t know the whole story. “Did Sun tell you about that camping trip?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.”

“You should come. There are so many couples already. Ruby and I both agree we need to break that up a little.”

If she was completely honest with herself Ilia just hadn’t been sure if she wouldn’t feel awkward around Blake’s friends. “If I’m not too busy with my classes I might join you.”

Weiss smiled. “That would be great.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Are you sure that’s not just your kidney?”

“Do you know what a kidney looks like?” Yang snapped the picture out of Mercury’s hand. They were lying on the grass outside, her head resting on his stomach. “The doctor said she can see the head.”

“It kinda does look like a… spot”, Blake said. “But if the doctor didn’t say anything it’s probably supposed to look like that.”

“I looked it up online, it still looks like an alien. The doctor said everything is perfectly alright, though. It already has a heartbeat.” Yang gave the picture back to Blake who put it between the pages of her book to keep it safe. “Also I’m not supposed to tell anyone for a few weeks, so either I’ll have a miscarriage until then, or I’ll have an abortion, or I have to come up with a way to tell my dad.”

“If he comes for me I’ll pretend I don’t know you.” Mercury ran his fingers through her hair.

“Maybe I can just write him a letter. But him moving here next week won’t make it any easier. Do you think Ruby would tell him? He can’t be mad at Ruby, no one can.”

“Ruby will be excited, I think she would do it”, Blake said. “Though you should tell him in person.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to”, Mercury said.

Yang sat up. “You have classes in ten minutes, you should definitely attend those in person.”

“You’re annoying.” He sat up and stretched. “See you tomorrow?”

“Maybe. I’ll text you.”

A smirk was all she got before he got up and left. It had never been different between them, they had never hugged or kissed in public, but now it just felt weird. She tried to blame the hormones.

“So you’re already thinking about how to tell your dad?”, Blake asked.

“ _If_ I keep it. No, don’t look at me like that.” Yang sighed and lied back down on the grass, staring at the sky. “Okay, maybe I’ve been trying to wait it out so I don’t actually have to make a decision.”

“You know, it’s almost adorable.” Blake smirked.

“Adorable?”

“A week ago you were miserable. You look like you’re getting used to the thought.”

“Maybe I am.” She sighed. “But I’m scared to tell Mercury.”

“He’s not stupid, and he actually does know you really well.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, come on.” Blake lied down next to her. “He’s been with you for years. I always thought if this doesn’t have a fast and bad ending you will stay together for a long, long time.”

“But I’m not sure if he wants a child.”

“You want it, don’t you?”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know, but I think I’m beyond the point where I could have got rid of it. Maybe it will… grow on me.” She pulled herself up on her forearms. “You don’t see anything yet, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Good, because this morning I thought for a moment that I really should make that decision soon, my bras are already getting too tight and I’m not going to buy new ones if I’m not even going to keep this baby. Also I should probably tell Weiss, because someone has to help me figure everything out that I need to do now.” And because Weiss was the one who always managed to make her calm down, no matter what happened. Right now she really needed that. The thought of being a mum less than a year from now was terrifying.

When she looked at Blake her smile was genuine and warm. “Sounds good.”

“At least one of us is excited.” She looked away and bit her lip. “I need to tell Mercury.”

“Oh, finally you get that idea all by yourself.”

“Now.” Yang got up. “I need to tell him right now.”

“He’s in the middle of a lecture.”

“He’s not paying attention anyway.” She took her backpack. “I’ll be a nervous wreck tomorrow if I don’t tell him right now.”

“Alright, go ahead.” Blake rolled her eyes, but she smirked.

Sneaking into the lecture was easy. The room was full of people and no one paid attention to Yang when she carefully closed the door behind her. Finding Mercury was even easier. He was sitting in the back row like usually, his feet resting on the table in front of him, taking notes on his laptop. He didn’t look up when Yang sat down next to him. She leaned closer until her lips almost touched his ear. “Hello”, she whispered.

Mercury flinched and almost dropped his laptop. He sat up, putting his laptop on the table before he looked at her. “Interested in developmental psychology?”

“I need to talk to you.” She leaned closer. The professor didn’t seem to care about anything that was going on inside the room.

“Now?”, he whispered.

“I think I’ll keep the baby.”

For a moment he just looked at her, then he turned back to his laptop. “I know.”

“Wait, what?” It was hard to keep her voice down.

He smirked. “I seriously wondered if you would keep debating until it’s born. I knew for a while.”

“Since when?”

He shrugged. “I suspected it ever since you told me. I was sure when you claimed the last piece of pizza and told me I couldn’t steal food from a pregnant woman.”

She shook her head. Mercury typed something on his laptop and Yang kissed his cheek. “You’re unbelievable.”  

He wrapped his arm around her hip without looking up, pulling her closer before briefly he kissed her lips. “I’ll call you later”, he said before turning back to his laptop. She smiled. As much as he annoyed her sometimes, he could make her feel warm in a way no one else could.

“See you”, she whispered before she got up and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if there will be any updates next week as I'll be going on vacation, but I will definitely write while I'm gone!


	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes Mercury was convinced that whatever was between him and Emerald only worked because most things could stay unspoken. She didn’t ask why he was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she was studying. Sometimes he needed someone around to keep bad thoughts away, sometimes she needed someone to yell at to feel better. They never asked.

“Yang is pregnant”, Mercury said.

“Sorry, what?”

“You’ve heard me.” He stared at a crack in the ceiling, just so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

“Oh, fuck.” She turned around. “Is it yours?”

“Come on.”

“Sorry. Is she going to keep it?”

“It’s Yang we’re talking about here, of course she is.”

“Oh, wow.” For a while she didn’t say anything and he didn’t dare to look at her. Then he heard her getting up and sitting down next to him. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s… terrifying. This is a terrible idea, I’d be a horrible father. But she already expected me to leave her right away, so of course I have to be the one who pretends everything is alright.”

“You’re such an idiot, I can’t believe I have to put up with you. I can’t believe you both are like this.” She groaned. “If you can get her pregnant you can talk about your feelings with her.”

“We never did that and it worked fine.”

“It worked so fine you believed you were dating for years and she wasn’t. So are you going to move in together?”

“We haven’t talked about that yet.”

“Of course you haven’t.” She got up. “I need coffee. Don’t just stay there, we need to talk about this.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.” He got up and followed her into the kitchen. He knew exactly why he had told her.

“You need to figure out the living situation.” Emerald turned on the coffee machine and gave him one of the dirty mugs from the sink. “Wash that. You can’t come over every now and then if you really want to help her, and she can’t stay in her dorm room. So either you two look for a new place together or she moves in here.”

“Here?” He raised his eyebrows and started to wash the mug, not even trying to get the coffee stains out.

“It’s not the area to raise a child, but a place to live. It would get very cramped with the three of us, but my room is bigger, so if we switch it could work. I’d probably have to move out anyway, but if you move out I’d also need another roommate, so you should just talk to her so we can figure this out and make plans.”

“You would actually let her and the baby move in with us?”

“Obviously she’d have to move in before the baby comes.” She didn’t look at him. “I can’t believe you did this, how did that even happen? No, don’t answer that. Holy shit, I never thought you’d ever have children.”

“Do you think I did?” He dried the mug with a towel that at least looked clean. “I don’t know anything about children.”

“Well, you have a few months to learn it now.” She looked at him with the same expression she had when he hadn’t done the dishes for a week. “I won’t let you screw this up so better start doing your research.”

He pressed his lips together to keep himself from smiling. “Sure.”

“I’m serious. Now let me study and go talk to her about the living situation before it starts to freak me out, I don’t want to be homeless all of a sudden.”

“Come on, we always need a babysitter. We won’t throw you out.”

“Call her.” She threw a kitchen towel at him. “I can’t believe I have to make you have that talk.”

 

* * *

 

“Dad would want to frame it”, Yang said. “Along with every other ultrasound picture I get.”

“You have no idea how mad he was when I told the doctor I didn’t want a picture from your first ultrasound.” Raven sipped on her coffee. “I think it looked worse than this one.”

“Just get a better picture from the internet”, Vernal said. “It’s not like anyone will spot the difference. I don’t really get why people want to keep ultrasound pictures anyway. Once the child is born you’ll have plenty of opportunities to take proper pictures.”

“Maybe that will calm dad down when I tell him.” Yang shrugged. She felt like she could murder for a cup of coffee, but Vernal had brought her a glass of lemonade without any comment. Yang wasn’t even sure if coffee was allowed or not, so she hadn’t dared to protest.

“Oh, he will be thrilled”, Raven said. “He loves children. Don’t worry.”

“He doesn’t even know my boyfriend.” Using that word when she was talking about Mercury still felt weird. “Or that I have one. Maybe I’ll just send him a text message and disappear for a couple of days so he can get used to the thought.”

“The worst thing that can happen is him trying to make you move in with him again.” Raven looked at the ultrasound picture and for a moment Yang wasn’t sure if she was smiling. “As soon as you tell him he will be the most excited grandpa you have ever seen.”

“I need to start looking for an apartment.” Most importantly she had to discuss this topic with Mercury. She hadn’t planned to move in with him, but now it was a logical step the had to talk about. She had to move out of her dormitory, they were both going to take care of a child together. It just made sense. She juts hoped it wouldn’t go wrong and end in a bitter breakup.

“Do you want to stay in the area?”, Vernal asked.

“Yes. I mean it makes sense, dad works here now, Ruby is here…” And Raven, but she didn’t dare to mention that in front of her. “All my friends live here. I like the city. Merc still isn’t done with his degree.”

“I’ll ask around, maybe someone knows anything.” Raven took the last sip of her coffee. “I have to get back to the kids before they set the house on fire or anything. Tell me when you’ve told Tai, I want to know what he has said.”

Yang shook her head for a moment. It was ridiculous her parents still hadn’t talked. Maybe she had to make them. “I will. But I will probably wait until he has moved and settled in.”

“Maybe tell him before the baby arrives”, Vernal said. “Drink your lemonade, it’s hot today.”

Yang rolled her eyes, but she took a ship so Vernal would shut up. She easily became protective when Yang had a hangover, making her drink water and making her breakfast. She never realised it herself and it probably would have bothered her to no end, but now that Yang was pregnant she probably wouldn’t stop until the baby was born. “I will just try to pretend I gained a bit of weight.”

Raven got up. “That is totally going to work. Call me when you know if you have time for dinner next week.”

“I will.” Yang smiled and quickly looked away. She didn’t dare to smile. “See you.”


	11. Chapter 11

“You’re what?!”

“Pregnant.” Yang shrugged nervously. “I mean it wasn’t planned, but I’ll have the child after I graduate, so I can still –“

“No, Yang, wait. Let’s go a few steps back. How did that happen?” Weiss was sitting on Blake’s bed, staring at Yang as if she had just told her she was going to be a nun.

“Do you really want me to explain that part?”

“You know what I meant. Is that why you and Mercury are suddenly official now?”

“Side effect.” Yang sighed. “Weiss, please don’t tell anyone. It’s still too early and I don’t want Ruby to get upset if anything happens.”

“Of course I won’t, but –“

“And yes, I know there is a lot to do, I have to talk to Mercury about moving in together or not which is a huge step all of a sudden if you consider we weren’t able to figure that whole dating thing out until recently, then we have to find a place we can afford while he finishes university and I know my mum said she’d support us, but how are we going to pay for a living and –“

“Yang!” Weiss looked like she was about to snap at her. “Calm down. Stress is not good for the baby.” Yang wasn’t sure why she had expected anything else. Weiss sat down next to Yang. “We can figure all of that out. It will be okay. Now let’s make a list, I know you only told me because I’m the only one who can get some order into your mess of a schedule.”

“Not only because of that”, Yang said. “Also because… you know, I don’t want Blake to be the only person I can talk to about this. I’m still not sure if I’m allowed to be happy about this and if anyone would be both responsible and happy it’s you.” She shrugged. “I guess not being able to really talk about it freaks me out even more. I have another ultrasound on Friday, right before we leave for the camping trip, and I’m nervous.”

“Why? Is anything wrong with the baby?”

“Not that I know of, but what if?”

“Everything will be alright, Yang.”

“Even if, after that I’m allowed to tell people and then I have to deal with all that. I know I said I wanted to talk to people about it, but _everyone_ knowing is scary too.”

“Everyone will be so happy for you.” Weiss looked down for a moment before she smiled. “You realise that I won’t let you get away without a baby shower, right?”

“I shouldn’t have told you.” Yang let herself fall back on her bed and laughed. “If you buy any pink stuff I will never talk to you again.”

“Is it going to be a girl?”

“It’s too early to know that, but just… if.”

“Don’t worry, I will just buy everything in yellow to spite your boyfriend’s refusal to wear anything but grey and black.”

“I got him a yellow scarf for Christmas last year, he wears it at home.”

“I won’t let him turn this baby into a snarky goth. No discussion about that.”

“I’m on your side with this one.” She smiled. For the first time she felt like she was allowed to be happy about this. “Okay, but even if I know whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl by the time you do that baby shower thing, we won’t tell anyone. Let them struggle to find anything that’s not blue or pink.”

“Also we have to buy all the baby clothes before Blake and Mercury get a chance to buy every black onesie they can find.”

“You got yourself a deal.”

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I ran up the stairs a couple of weeks ago.” Yang groaned. She wasn’t able to walk upstairs to his apartment without getting out of breath anymore and she totally used it as an excuse to lie on his bed for an hour without moving a muscle. “Pack some warm hoodies.”

“It’s August.”

“Late August. It can get cold around the lake and what if it rains?” She looked at him going through his chaotic wardrobe. “Also I like your hoodies.”

“You like to steal them. Which ones?”

“The one on top and the grey one. No, not that one, the soft grey one. Yes.”

“I already hate camping.” He threw the hoodies on the bed, followed by some shirts. More than he needed, but he probably expected her to steal his clothes again. He wasn’t wrong. “Do you have anything against mosquitos?”

“Weiss has everything you need. Ruby will get you a camping mat and a sleeping back. I have a tent. Ren takes care of the food. You won’t die out there.”

“How about painkillers for the backache I am definitely going to have?”

“I’ll give you a massage.” She laughed when he smirked at her. “Not like that, keep your dirty thoughts to yourself for a weekend.”

He threw a pair of jeans to the other clothes on the bed and then turned around. “I can’t promise anything.” He sat down on the bed and leaned over her. “We’ll share a tent after all.”

“Yes.” She pulled him closer to kiss him. “Actually I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What? Are you going to make me sleep out in the open?”

“No.” She sighed and he lied down next to her, running his fingers through her hair. “The ultrasound.”

“Did you change your mind about –“

“No, you really don’t need to come. You need to pass this class and Blake said she has time.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes, but… if everything goes well we can start to tell people tomorrow.”

He froze for a second. “Already, huh?”

“Yes.” She moved closer and rested her head on his chest. She still felt like he would throw her up as soon as she brought up the topic. “I think this trip would be a good opportunity to tell our friends, you know?” She bit her lip.

“Sure.”

She pulled herself up on her forearms to look at him. “Are you sure you’re alright with that?”

 “I’m more worried about your parents.” He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know, it’s… weird.”

“Weird?” Panic was hitting her gut like a hammer.

“I don’t know. It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s… what do you mean?”

“Nothing, Yang.” He sounded annoyed. “Do we have to talk about that now?”

“Yes.” She sat up. She felt like she was about to throw up. “You said you’re okay with this whole baby thing, did you change your mind?”

“Could you please stop acting like I’ll dump you any second?” He sat up and for a moment she thought he was about to get up, but he just kept sitting on the edge of the bed. She stared at his back and if she was going to cry now she would never forgive the pregnancy hormones. “It’s just weird, okay? But I knew that you’d freak out as soon as I mention it.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Maybe a bit.”

He sighed. “I don’t know, it’s just… I was always so sure I would never have children, it’s just bizarre. I can’t really wrap my mind around it.”

“Me neither.” She looked away. “I’m sorry. I really don’t want to put that sort of pressure on you.”

“It’s not about that. Just stop being so careful with me because it’s freaking me out.” She heard him move closer but she didn’t dare to look up until his lips brushed her temple. “Stop sulking, it’s annoying.”

“I’m not sulking.” She leaned against him. “I have no idea how all this works either. I should probably buy a book or something.”

“Yeah. Give me a summary when you have read it.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe you.” She sighed. “Anyway. If I have to come up with an excuse why I’m not drinking again I might as well just tell everyone when we’re at the lake. I will hardly get that many of my friends together anytime soon, so… it’s easier, you know?”

“If you want to know if it bothers me or not just ask me.”

“Well, would it bother you?”

“I don’t know yet, so just do it.” He wrapped his arms around her.

“But I don’t want anyone else to know until I have told Ruby. And next week we can tell my parents. It took me ages, but mum said she’d come along. It’s the first time she’s talking to my dad in years, I think ever since she left him actually, so maybe that awkwardness will overshadow the news.”

“I’ve told Em.”

“I honestly expected that.” She looked at him. “I’ve told Weiss.”

“Oh no, now I really can’t leave you. She’ll come after me.”

She laughed. “I will come after you.”

He kissed her forehead. “Oh no, I’m so scared now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is the most teeth rotting fluff I ever wrote. It's already over 3k long and not done at all, so... I mean I tagged it as shameless fluff, it's not like I haven't warned you.


	12. Chapter 12

“I think we need more snacks for this weekend.” Blake stared at the empty back of cookies on the dashboard.

“I’m sorry.”

“Actually it was really cute.” Blake reached for the grocery back on the backseat. “We still have the chocolate cookies, or chips?”

“Chips. The ones with cheese.” Yang took another tissue from the bag. “It was just so… all of a sudden I’m surrounded with cute baby stuff.” Talking about it almost made her feel like she was going to cry again. “I got through the whole doctor’s appointment without getting emotional, but I didn’t even know baby socks are so tiny. I’m turning into an emotional mummy monster.”

“I bought them.”

“You bought what?”

“The socks.” Blake threw a bag of chips and another bag of tissues at her before she went through the bag again. “I just had to. That was the cutest thing I have ever seen.”

As much as she tried, nothing could keep Yang from crying again. ”The one with the tiny bears?”, she asked, sobbing like an idiot.  This really was her lowest point so far.

“Yes.”

“This is just ridiculous.”

“Here.” Blake sat back down on the driver’s seat. “The first gift your baby ever gets.”

“Stop making me so damn sentimental about socks.” Yang took them out of her hands. “Look, they have tiny little ears, like a real bear.” She opened the bag of chips. After all the doctor had told her to snack when she wasn’t feeling well. “We really do need more food.”

“I’ll go get them.” Blake smiled at her. “And then we need to make you look presentable, if Mercury sees you like that he will think something is wrong.”

 

* * *

 

The campsite had everything someone more romantic than him would have loved. A lake, tree trunks around a fireplace, and real trees with actual leaves. He already hated it. The idea of sleeping in a tent out of free will and not out of necessity seemed utterly ridiculous to him.

 “Aren’t you supposed to help Yang with the tent?” Weiss raised her eyebrows when Mercury sat down on the tree trunk next to her.

“Who’s building your tent?”

“We’re already done with that.”

“Yang sent me away.” He shrugged. “She said I’m more helpful over here than when I actually try to help her.”

“She shouldn’t do this alone, what if –“

“Come on, she’ll be fine.”

Weiss bit her lip for a moment. “But… you know, what if…”

“I know you know.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s fine.”

“Oh.” She looked down. “Are you sure it’s not too exhausting for her?”

“She’s just building a tent. The most exhausting thing about it is yelling at someone who is trying to help her.”

Weiss sighed. “Did she tell you anything about the ultrasound?”, she whispered. “She only gave me a thumbs up when I looked at her, but did she say anything?”

“Not really, only that everything is alright.” She hadn’t exactly said it, but he would know if anything was wrong. Yang was bad at hiding something like that from him.

“I wish I could talk to her in private. This is so exciting.”

“She will definitely tell you all about it.”

“I hope so. You know, if you two ever need help with something, you can ask me.”

“I’ll ask again when the baby won’t stop crying and we need a break.” He chuckled. Out of all of Yang’s friends Weiss had been most open about hating him in the beginning, but now he almost liked her.

“I will help you, even with that. If you like it or not.”

“Or if _you_ like it or not. Did you notice Blake’s friend is staring at you?”

“Ilia?” Weiss turned around, only to stare back at the lake. She blushed. “She doesn’t like me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She said that. I am trying to respect her boundaries.”

That really wasn’t what this looked like. “Sure.” He got up. “I’ll go and see if Yang is done with the tent.”

“Be nice to her”, she said. He only laughed.

Yang was actually done with the tent. She was lying inside, staring at her phone and not even looking up when he crawled inside and sprawled out next to her. “I will get a horrible backache when I sleep on this floor”, he said.

“Stop whining.” She smirked. Her eyes were reddened. “Come on, it’s beautiful here.”

“Did you cry?”

She groaned. “We’re not talking about that.” She rolled on her stomach, pulled herself up on her forearms and reached for her bag. “Look.” She pulled out a book and opened it. The ultrasound picture was lying between the pages. He raised his eyebrows and for a moment his heart was beating faster in his chest. “It almost looks like a baby now.”

It definitely looked like a baby. He stared at the picture for a moment before he moved closer. “Yes, it does. It looks… bigger.”

“It’s smaller than on the picture, but look, that’s a leg.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I went to the supermarket with Blake to buy stuff for our trip and I swear, I was completely cool when I was with the doctor and we looked at the picture and listened to the heartbeat, but then in the supermarket I stumbled upon all the baby stuff and… I don’t know, babies are so tiny and cute and I can’t believe I will have my own soon.”

“What did the doctor say? Is everything alright?”

“Perfectly fine. Sorry, I should have told you earlier.”

“No, I figured.” He leaned his head against hers. Her hair was tickling his cheek. “So you cried in the middle of the supermarket, huh?”

“It was horrible.” Yang closed the book again and pulled something else out of her bag. “Blake bought the socks I was crying about, she thought it was cute.”

“You cried over socks?”

“Just look.” She was holding a small baby sock in her hand. “It’s so tiny.”

“Is that a bear?” He took it out of her hands. It really was tiny. A foot fitting in there had to be tiny too, and it was already freaking him out.

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you crying again?” He leaned down to kiss her temple. “Come on, it’s just a sock.”

“I never was a baby person, you know?” She rubbed her eyes. “But now it’s just the cutest thing ever. Shit, I really need to tell Ruby so I can tell everyone else because I’m already a mess.” She sat up. “I’ll go and tell her I need to get something from the car with her. Does that sound like a plan?”

“Sounds good.” He turned the tiny sock in his hands before he gave it back to her. “You don’t need me for this, do you?”

“No.” She threw the sock back into her back along with the book and sat up. “You can help Ren with the cooking.”

“I’ll just pretend I’m napping so I don’t have to do anything.” He smirked and she shook her head.

She turned around to leave, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back. He pecked her lips and she kissed his cheek. He pulled her closer for a moment, just her body pressed against his, the smell of her hair and her hand running up and down his back. He didn’t want to let her go. She leaned down to kiss him one last time before she got up and left the tent. He looked at her and tried not to smile.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe you’re out of breath already.” Ruby was a few steps in front of her, turning around and smirking when she didn’t catch up immediately. “You’re out of shape.”

“Oh, be careful.” Yang grinned. “I’ll come after you for that.”

“Working out with Weiss pays off.” Ruby waited for her to catch up before they both walked down the forest path that lead to the parking place.

“You know, maybe there is another reason for that.” Yang wasn’t even sure why telling Ruby made her even more nervous than telling Mercury.

“What do you mean? Did Weiss’ schedule make you too busy to work out?”

“No, actually…” Yang took a deep breath. It wasn’t easy with Ruby’s pace.

“Are you alright?” For a moment Ruby looked concerned.

“Yes, sure. I’m perfectly fine. Actually I wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ruby looked at her. “Good news?”

“Well, I mean… yeah. Good news.” She didn’t really dare to smile.

“Stop teasing me, what is it?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Ruby stopped so abruptly Yang almost ran into her. “Wait, what?”

Yang shrugged. “Yeah, it’s…”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it.” Before Yang could say another word Ruby had pulled her into a tight hug. “But you can’t see anything yet.”

“Yeah, it’s… early.” Yang hesitated for a moment before she pulled Ruby closer. “But some of my pants already don’t really fit anymore.”

“This is crazy.” Ruby pulled away to look at her. “Well, you’re not really wearing anything too tight today.”

“No, but… I mean it’s not the flattest stomach I have ever had, but it’s not showing yet.” She nervously ran her fingers through her hair.

“Does dad know?”

“Of course not. Do you think I’d tell him without telling you? Blake knows.”

“Obviously.”

“Raven knows, too. Also I told Weiss. I don’t know, I had to tell someone and I didn’t want to freak you out before I knew everything was alright.”

“I’m so excited!” Ruby beamed at her. “This will be the cutest little baby ever. How did Mercury react? What did he say? How am I going to keep this a secret?”

“I’ll tell everyone else soon anyway.” Yang smiled. Ruby’s excitement actually did make her feel so much better about the whole situation. “Merc is getting used to it I guess. I mean we didn’t really plan for this to happen, but maybe it’s better that way because we both would have said no to ever having children, let’s be honest.”

“But you’re happy now, aren’t you?”

“I am mostly stressed, but… yeah, of course I am.” At least she was getting there. “I can’t wait to buy cute baby clothes. Come on, let’s hurry before the others get suspicious.”

“Tell me if we’re too fast, okay?” Ruby was rather jumping up and down than walking. “I’m going to be an aunt!”

Yang laughed. “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

When they got back Ruby was still excited, but she had calmed down enough to just seem her usual bubbling self. Yang crawled back into her tent only to find Mercury actually being asleep. She looked at his stupidly handsome face for a moment before she cuddled up to him. His breath was slow and steady. She closed her eyes.

“Yang?”

She sat up. “Weiss?” She ran her fingers through her hair.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to –“

“No, come inside. I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

Weiss crawled inside the tent, looking at Mercury for a second. “Is he –“

“Asleep, yeah.” Yang took the book out of her bag and searched for the page with the ultrasound picture. Mercury groaned and rolled on his side. Yang leaned against his back and ran her fingers through his hair when she gave Weiss the picture. “Look.”

Weiss pressed her hand on her mouth for a moment. “Oh, it’s so… tiny, but look, that’s the head! This is adorable.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I told you everything would be alright. I think I have never seen anything more adorable in my entire life.” Weiss put the picture back between the pages of Yang’s book, careful as if it was the most precious thing she had ever seen.

“Just wait until you see what Blake has bought for us.” She took the baby socks out of her bag and gave them Weiss.

“They’re so tiny.” Weiss looked like she was about to cry any second. “I can’t believe you’re already buying baby stuff.”

“Well, Blake did.” Yang grinned. “I told Ruby and she’s super excited.”

“Of course she is.” She turned the socks in her hands. “You have to wash these before the baby can wear them.”

“I know.”

“Dinner will probably ready in an hour”, Weiss said. “Maybe wake up your boyfriend.”

“You already did”, Mercury groaned.

“He can take it.”

“I’ll ask Ren if he needs any help.” Weiss rolled her eyes before she crawled out of the tent. Yang smirked and stroked the back of his neck.

“Does your back hurt already?”

“Almost.” He rolled on his back, his eyes still closed. She leaned down to kiss him and he lazily kissed her back. “I know why you want to tell everyone at once”, he said. “You’re just having the same talk over and over again. Oh, look at those socks, they are so tiny, this baby will be so cute, look at the ultrasound, there is the head, it actually looks like a baby now.”

“If you’re already getting sick of it you’re in for a couple of really rough months.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. “I already made my peace with that.”

She kissed his cheek. “You will drown in tiny cute baby socks.”

“If you expect me to care whether this child ever wears matching socks or not you are wrong.”

She smiled. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe she was just too scared.

 

* * *

 

When it got dark it actually did cool down a bit. They were sitting by the campfire, but when Mercury saw the goose bumps on Yang’s arms he brought her one of his hoodies without saying anything. He was sitting behind her and she leaned back against his chest, listening to Jaune and Nora trying to tell the story of how they broke into Jaune’s car late at night because he had left his keys inside. He had wrapped tightly around her stomach and she wasn’t sure if she was making things up or if he actually had never done that before.

“I need another beer to cope with this story.” Sun got up. “Anyone else who wants anything? Yang?”

“Do we still have any coke left or did you turn it all into rum coke?”

“You know, I haven’t seen you drinking in ages, are you pregnant or what?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. Yang just looked him dead serious in the eyes until he stopped, insecurely looking at Blake who just looked away.

“Oh my god, you really are pregnant!” Nora got up. Before Yang could even move she had pulled her into a tight hug. “I can’t believe it.”

“Wait, what?” Jaune stared at her. “With an actual child?”

“No, Jaune. She’s going to lay an egg.” Ilia rolled her eyes.

“I thought you weren’t even dating”, Sun said. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you confess anything.”

“It’s okay, Sun. Don’t worry.” Yang smiled. “I was meaning to tell you guys anyway.”

“Congratulations, I’m really happy for you.” Pyrrha smiled at her. “I knew something was up, Blake has been acting weird for weeks. But I really didn’t expect this.”

Mercury wrapped his arms around her again, as if the sudden attention made him want to shelter the baby from curious looks. At least that was how it felt to her, and the thought was comforting. “I haven’t told my dad yet, so please don’t post it on Facebook or anything.”

“Will there be a baby shower? Please have a baby shower.” Nora sat back down next to Ren, grinning from one ear to the other.

“Of course”, Weiss said. “I won’t let her get away without one.”

“I can’t wait to become an aunt.” Ruby beamed. “I’ve been dying all day long because I couldn’t tell anyone.”

Yang smiled at Ruby. All she wanted was to change the topic, because as nice as it was how everyone reacted, this was freaking her out. Mercury leaned his chin on her head and all of a sudden she felt better. “I’ll let you know. I won’t miss out on the opportunity of a party. Anyway, first we have to make plans for graduation and everything that comes with it.”

“I’ll go get you a coke”, Sun said. “No one puts any alcohol into non-alcoholic drinks anymore, the pregnant lady needs it.”

Yang laughed. She stroked the back of Mercury’s had with her thumb. All she wanted to do was to pull him down and kiss him, but she knew that what she got right now was the peak of public displayed affection she had ever gotten from him. She didn’t want to overdo it.

Nora quickly found another story to tell. Yang stared into the campfire and listened, until she closed her eyes and listened, until she caught herself not listening anymore and just dozing off. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she felt Mercury’s lips brush her cheek. “Did you fall asleep?”

“No, of course not”, she mumbled.

“This is getting boring. Do you want to go to bed?”

“I don’t want to move.” Anything seemed way too exhausting. He chuckled. The next moment he had picked her up, carrying her bridal style towards the tent. “Stop that”, she said. “I’m a strong independent woman.”

“And I’m bored of those stories. If I go to bed before you do you’ll just wake me up later.”

“You have no patience.” She groaned when he let her down in front of the tent and crawled inside. “Isn’t this romantic?”, she said and took her shoes off.

“No, it’s uncomfortable and stupid.” He took his shoes and jeans off and sprawled out. She knew he was staring at her when she undressed. She threw his bra at him and he laughed. She took her jeans off and put one of his shirts on before she lied down next to him. “Won’t you get cold like that?”, he asked.

“It’s August and you’re not wearing much more.”

“Yeah, but…” He sighed and pulled her closer. They were lying one sleeping bag, spreading the other over them because it actually was a warm day. She smirked and rested her head on his arm. He was overprotective, and it was adorable. Him being protective at all was so unusual.

“Do you think I look pregnant?”

“I haven’t seen you in anything tight for weeks.” His hand sneaked under her shirt, stroking her belly for a moment before it stayed there. “You can feel it a bit, but it probably just looks like you’ve eaten too much.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

His hand was warm on her bare skin. She didn’t dare to move because she was afraid he would take it away. She felt his breath on her neck and smiled. “Sleep well”, she mumbled. “I –“ She bit her tongue. Holy shit, had she really just almost said that?

“Mh?”

“I hope the others stay up much longer so we can sleep in without missing breakfast.”

“No one is going to deny a pregnant woman breakfast.” He pulled her a bit closer and she prayed he wouldn’t feel her heart pounding way too fast Admitting she was in love with him to Blake was one thing, telling him another. It felt weird to say it. They never talked about stuff like that, and he had never even really said that he liked her, or that he could stand her. There had never been a reason for it. The way he acted around her gave it away. Him showing up at her place just to bring her breakfast and lie on her bed, playing with his phone while she was studying. Him pulling her closer when he got sleepy. Him calling her when he couldn’t sleep so she could explain something from her last lecture to him until he fell asleep to the sound of her voice.

Was he even in love with her? She had never actually allowed herself to think about it. She wasn’t even sure if the concept of love wasn’t one of the many things that he hated with all his heart. Didn’t it make sense to believe that? The way he acted around her, the fact that he was staying with her despite everything.

Yang took a deep breath. His hand was still resting on her belly. Thinking about it now wouldn’t get her anywhere. But she couldn’t help but to feel a warmth deep inside of her that was so comforting it scared her.

 

* * *

 

“I should go to bed.” Jaune stretched. “It’s been a long day.”

“Good idea.” Nora got up. “Are you going to stay for a bit longer?”

Ilia looked at Weiss. She hesitated for a moment before she nodded. “I’m not tired yet.”

“Alright, good night.” Jaune got up and followed Nora back to their tents.

For a moment they just sat there in awkward silence. Ilia took a sip of beer and got up. “I guess you don’t have any ghost stories left to tell?”, she said when she sat down next to Weiss.

“I think nothing gets scarier than Sun talking about throwing up in Kali’s car.”

“Yeah, that story was truly frightening.” Ilia chuckled. “Last time I went camping it rained and we had to sleep in the car.”

“I never went camping before.”

Ilia raised her eyebrows. “Never?”

“That’s not really the kind of family holiday we did. Actually we never really went on holidays, only business trips where my father wanted to show off his well-behaved children.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess that doesn’t really count.”

“How do you like it?”, Ilia asked. “Camping I mean.”

Weiss shrugged. “It’s… well, a bit colder than I expected for August, and I still don’t really get that whole nature thing, because of course you can do that and spend a couple of days here, but I wouldn’t prefer it over my bed.”

“It’s about sleeping beneath the starts. That’s romantic.”

“You’re not even sleeping beneath the stars, you’re in a tent.”

Ilia laughed and playfully nudged her with her elbow. “But look where we are right now. Stars, a campfire, the forest…”

“Don’t forget about the mosquitos.” Weiss smirked and looked away. “You know, I always wanted to go to summer camp as a child. Learning how to make fire, a night walk… it sounds stupid, but I read about it in books and I barely got to leave the house at all, so being in the forest at night seemed so adventurous.”

“Well, right now we’re in a forest. Have your night walk now.”

“I can’t go alone.”

Ilia chuckled and got up. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s already late and I’m not sure if I have a flashlight, maybe –“

“What happened to adventurous?”

Weiss sighed and got up. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

It was obvious Weiss had probably never been to a forest. Every noise made her freak out, she tripped over every leaf on the ground and it took five minutes to turn her into a nervous wreck. “This was a bad idea”, she mumbled. “Do you even know where we are?”

“The others can probably still see us from the camp.”

“We should have brought flashlights.” Weiss tripped and Ilia grabbed her arm to stop her from falling.

“Careful, snowflake.”

“Hey, don’t call me that.”

Ilia laughed. “Stop me.”

“You’re taking this way more lightly than you should.”

“You’re more scared than every excited ten year old camper. Did you ever do something bold?”

“I did.”

“Well, now is your time to do it again.”

It was hard to see the expression on her face in the dark, but her hair almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. The next moment Ilia felt Weiss’ hands on her face when she pulled her down and kissed her. Her lips were warm. Ilia didn’t understand what was happening, and when she did, before she could decide if she liked it or not, Weiss already pulled away. “Oh my god”, she hissed. “Oh no, I’m so sorry.”

Ilia’s heart was pounding fast in her chest. “I…” She didn’t even know what she had wanted to say.

“I can’t believe I did that”, Weiss said. And then she turned around and ran away. She didn’t make it very far, tripping over a tree root and falling to the ground. “Shit.”

“Did you really just curse?” Yes, that was definitely not the right thing to say in this situation. “Are you okay?”

“No, of course not.” Weiss got up. “Can we just pretend this never happened?”

“You lying on the forest floor or…” She felt her cheeks grow hot.

“Both.” Weiss carefully made her way through the forest without looking at her. “Just… both.”

Ilia stared at her. She didn’t know how to feel, what to say, what to do. She had just had her first kiss, at night, in a forest, with the girl whose father was responsible for her parent’s death and she couldn’t manage to stop her stomach from tingling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did tell you this would get horribly fluffy. 
> 
> Well, guess we need that before I add the angst.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to randomly thank everyone who took the time to leave me a comment. I appreciate all the comments I get and you have no idea how much it always keeps me motivated. This story wouldn't even exist without you, this is not a lie, so thank you so much. 
> 
> Now off to the angst I promised you.

“Are you nervous?”

Mercury shrugged. “Well, you promised they wouldn’t kill me.”

Yang sighed and pulled him down by the collar of his shirt to kiss him. “I’m nervous.” It was an understatement. “Mum will be there, she will calm him down.”

“Yeah, sure.” He kissed her cheek. “Let’s get this over with.”

Yang ‘s heart was pounding fast when she rang the doorbell. When Taiyang opened the door she felt like she was getting sick. “Oh, you’re here”, he said. He sounded a bit less cheerful than usually, but maybe that was because of Raven and not Mercury. Hopefully.

“Yep. That’s Mercury by the way.”

“Well, hello.” Taiyang hugged her and gave Mercury a nod. At least that was something. “Why don’t you come in and help your mum in the kitchen?”

“Does she need help or are you just trying to avoid her?”

“I let her in, didn’t I?” He shrugged. “I thought we’d sit outside.”

The apartment her father has rented was small and cosy, but the biggest perk was the garden. It was tiny, but he had already started to work on it. Taiyang stayed inside to get plates. Yang sat down at the table, staring at the strawberry cake and the vase with sunflowers, feeling like the nervousness was already making her head ache. “Shit”, she whispered.

“You’re not doing a good job at calming me down.”

“Sorry.” 

He leaned back and smirked. “Come on, I’ve been through worse. Stop stressing out about it.”

“You can’t fool me, you’re nervous as well.”

“Yes, but you’re not making it any better.”

She shook her head and fumbled around with the hem of her top. It was a loose top, one she usually wore on her lazy days, but the fear of anyone seeing anything had dominated her clothing choices for the past weeks. “Let’s just get this over with.”

When Taiyang came back with the plates he looked more stressed than Yang felt. “Raven is making lemonade. Do we need anything else?”

“No, I think we’re good.”

Taiyang sat down, running his hands through his hair. “Yang, I know you don’t just want to introduce us to your new boyfriend, you want me and Raven to talk.”

“What if?” At least he wasn’t suspecting anything. “I mean you’ll have to eventually.”

Taiyang shook his head. Yang saw the suspicious glares he gave Mercury, but right now he seemed to mostly ignore him, which didn’t seem too bad. He had always been protective.

“Sorry it took me so long”, Raven said. She was carrying a large jug with lemonade, smiling at her before she looked at Mercury. For a moment it almost looked like she was raising her eyebrows in surprise. Her gaze lingered on him for a bit too long for Yang not to get nervous. Wasn’t he what she had expected? But what had she expected?

“Well, now you’re here”, Yang said. The stress actually was causing her a headache now and Weiss probably would have lectured her on how stress was bad for the baby. “Anyway, that’s Mercury.”

“I know.” Raven put the jug down on the table. It sounded… off. Too serious.

Yang looked at Mercury and she knew something was very, very wrong. He looked calm, but the calm that meant he wasn’t calm at all. The calm that meant he was upset to a level where he just wanted to be left alone.

“You two… know each other?”, Yang asked.

The silence was telling. Raven took Yang’s glass and filled it with lemonade. “He lived with us for a while”, Raven said eventually. “Don’t look at me like that, Mercury, you had to tell her eventually.”

“One of your criminal teenagers?”, Taiyang asked. “You’re dating one of Raven’s criminals?”

“They’re kids, Tai.” Raven rolled her eyes. “Most of them are just misguided.”

“What did he do?” Taiyang crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You get all of your ‘children’ because court sends them to you, don’t you? So what did he do?”

Yang looked at Mercury. He still looked calm, but his hands were clenched to fists under the table and she knew he was ready to explode. She had only seen him like that a couple of times and only once had made the mistake to try to talk to him when he was like that. “Dad, can we just stop talking about it?”

“Well, do you know? Did he tell you about his criminal record?”

Actually he hadn’t. The few bits he had told her about his past had been enough to give her an idea that it had been bad, bad enough he didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s not important.”

“I think it is. And I think you should know you’re hanging out with a criminal.”

“Tai.” Raven’s voice was sharp, the way she talked to her teenagers when she was reaching maximum level of authority. “Drop it. Now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Rae.”

For a moment it was awfully quiet. Yang looked at Mercury, but he just stared at some point far in the distance. He didn’t say a word. He hadn’t moved ever since Raven had showed up and when he did he pushed his chair back and got up. For a moment Yang was sure he’d throw something or flip the table, which was ridiculous because he had never been aggressive around her, but he just turned around and left. When he disappeared through the terrace door Yang felt like her head was going to explode. No one said a word until the front door slammed shut, awfully loud.

“Was that necessary?”, Raven asked. She sat down, glaring daggers at Tai. “Don’t you think I know a bit better than you whether he’s dangerous for her or not?”

“Well, did you say he wasn’t?”

“I’m saying it now.” Raven sighed. “He was one of the more successful cases considering the circumstances. I even managed to pull some strings and get him into university, despite his refusal to put more effort into things than he absolutely has to.”

“He’s dating our daughter, I need a bit more than that to –“

“I’m right here.” Yang glared at him. “You didn’t have to snap at him like that.”

“I didn’t snap at him, but don’t you think you should know about his past?”

“I don’t care! I have enough things to worry about right now and this is none of your business anyway.”

“Well, sorry if I’m just concerned.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“You’re not concerned, you’re an idiot”, Raven said. “You’re not even sorry.”

“Don’t tell me what I’m sorry about or not!”

“You should be.” Raven’s glared at him coldly. “He has done nothing wrong and you already treated him like he has deserved your wrath.”

“Oh, come on. You just want to be right, you don’t care about him at all.”

“I care about my daughter.”

“Yeah? Enough to –“

“I’m pregnant.” Yang buried her head in her hands. “So stop this, it’s giving me a headache.”

The silence was worse than Raven and Taiyang yelling at each other. Yang didn’t dare to look up until when Raven moved, taking the knife and starting to cut the strawberry cake. “You need to eat something”, she said. “It’s probably low blood sugar.”

“Did you know about this?”, Taiyang asked.

“This is really not the moment to pick another fight, Tai.”

“I’m not picking another fight, I was just asking a question!”

“Can you stop, please?” Yang groaned.

“Yeah, of course.” All of a sudden Tai’s gaze wasn’t angry anymore, just soft. “Do you need anything?”

“No.” She looked down at her plate before she took the fork. She didn’t start to eat because she was actually hungry, she just wanted to have an excuse not to say anything.

“Me finding out was rather an accident”, Raven said. “Otherwise she probably would have told you first.”

“Are you really…” He shook his head for a moment. “And he is…” Yang nodded and Taiyang sighed. “Did you really have to let me get into a position where I might have to apologise to him?”

“It’s not my fault you snapped at him before I could tell you.” Yang rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I knew this would happen.”

“I still want to know what he did”, he mumbled.

“That’s rather Yang’s business than yours”, Raven said. “And he should at least have a chance to tell her himself. Now at least pretend you’re happy about the news.”

“Well, it’s a bit… sudden.” He shook his hand and then took a piece of cake. “I didn’t expect that over the next ten years, or at least before you get married.”

“I’m not ever getting married, too much stress.” Yang stared down at her plate. Staring at her cake was safe, way safer than looking her father in the eye, and it actually did make her feel better. She carefully looked up.  

Taiyang looked at her, then he got up, kneeled down next to her and pulled her into his arms. “Those are great news”, he said. “I’m sorry this didn’t turn out as happy as it should.”

She sighed and hugged him back. “It’s okay. We can work this out.” At least she hoped they could.

“You should invite him for dinner.” He got up. “Or tell him… I invited him for dinner.”

 

* * *

 

He shouldn’t have slammed the door. Of course it would make Emerald come out of her room, of course she’d know something was up the second she looked at him and of course she wouldn’t leave him alone. Mercury sat on his bed next to Emerald and kept ignoring her as good as he could, but he knew she wouldn’t leave until he gave her an explanation.

“Can I just say she dumped me and you leave me alone?”, he asked.

“Is it that bad?”

“Worse.”

“Did her father get angry? Did –“

“It’s her mother.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“What did she do?”

“It’s not about what she did but who she is.”

She sighed. “Well, who is she? One of your professors?”

“Raven Branwen.”

Emerald froze. “Raven?”

“I just said it.”

“Fuck.” She sat up so she could look at him. “And you didn’t know?”

“Do you think I would have fucked her for almost four years if I had known? Of course not.”

“What are you going to do now?”

He shrugged. He had no idea. Everything he knew was that he was angry without knowing who he was angry at, and utterly screwed. “I mean I can’t just dump her now.” He would have lied if he had said he hadn’t considered it.

“I will literally choke you if you do that.” She shook his head. “Fuck, I thought we’d never seen her again.”

“I can’t have her as my mother in law.”

“You should talk to Yang.”

“And what?” His voice was so harsh she flinched. “Do you think talking about it would make it any better?”

“There’s a child involved and I told you I wouldn’t let you screw this up. You have to talk to her. Call her.”

“She called me. I turned my phone off.”

“Idiot.” She got up and took his phone from his desk. “What is your pin?”

“I won’t tell you my pin, Em, give me that.” He got up, but she hid the phone behind her back.

“Do you promise me to turn your phone on and to call her?”

“I’ll text her.”

“If you break up with her through text messages I will become your worst nightmare.” She gave him the phone. Even she wasn’t able to hide the concern on her face. “It will be alright, okay?” He wasn’t sure if she was asking or reassuring him.

“Sure.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ll text her.”

Emerald looked like she wanted to say something else, but she just nodded and squeezed his hand for a moment before she left the room. He felt like he had to yell at someone or break something and he had once promised himself never to feel like that again. He had never been good at keeping promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only after I posted this I realised I started the big angst in Chapter 13. How fitting.


	14. Chapter 14

“My dad isn’t that mad at you anymore”, Yang said. She was sitting on his bed and he could see she hadn’t cried, but she had this utterly concerned look on her face he hated. He sat on his chair and crossed his arms behind his back, trying to look like it didn’t bother him.

He raised his eyebrows. “Great.”

She sighed. “Come on. Stop being mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Then what else is it? Are you mad at my dad? My mum? I’ll talk to them.”

“I’m not mad at anyone.” He rubbed his eyes for a moment. Most of all he didn’t want to have this conversation, but she wouldn’t just go away if he ignored her long enough. “I just don’t want to have anything to do with her. That’s it.”

“But what does that mean? She’s my mum. You can’t make me cut her out of my life.”

“I never asked you to do that.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do you even want?”

“I want to talk to you so we can figure this out.”

“I don’t want to figure anything out.”

“You’re acting like a child. I don’t even get what the big deal is. Did she do anything to you?”

“It’s none of your business, Yang. Just stay out of this.”

“I can’t stay out of this because she’s my mum and you had to get me pregnant.” She got up, walking up and down the room, too angry to even look at him. Usually it didn’t bother him much when she was like that, but usually he wasn’t the one she was angry at. “I don’t get why you were freaking out like that. I don’t get what your problem is, or why you always refuse to talk about anything that bothers you.”

“Maybe not everyone wants to have a cheesy talk about feelings and flowers. I’m over it. No reason to talk about it.”

She stopped. “You know, if you act like that every time we have an argument we’ll probably be better off without you.”

He had reached her before she could open the door, pressing the door shut and trapping her between him and the door. He hadn’t even meant to get so close to her, he just didn’t want her to leave. “She knows”, he said.

“She knows what?”

“Everything.” His  voice was harsher than he had intended to. He stepped back a little. “Everything about me and my past.”

“She didn’t tell us anything.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“It’s not about that. Can you just drop it already?”

“No, I can’t, because –“

“I don’t want to have anything to do with her because I have no control over it. Every time I told you anything it was my choice.”

“You’re just scared of being vulnerable.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “Shut up, Yang.”

“But know who’s vulnerable too? Our child. You can’t just think about yourself.”

“Oh, I’m the selfish one now?”

“No, you’re… ” All of a sudden her voice was soft. He still couldn’t look at her. He just felt sick. He wanted her to leave, but a part of him also really didn’t. “You have a right to be. To an extent. But we also have to think about the baby.”

“Yang, it’s… bad. It’s been bad. I’m over it, but Raven just…” She reminded him of it.

“You’re not over it. If you were it wouldn’t bother you that much.”

“Are you going to lecture me now?”

“I just want to… help you.”

“You want me to get over with it because I got your pregnant.”

“I care about you, Merc, if you like it or not.”

He looked up. Everything about the way she looked at him was so soft, was scratching at his shell in a way he felt like he couldn’t take anymore. “Did I ever tell you it’s pretty annoying?”

“You love it anyway.” She laid her hand on his cheek, her thumb softly brushing over his skin. She broke through all of his carefully built up walls with ease, and he knew he couldn’t pretend like he didn’t have to make a choice anymore. Either pushing her away or letting her in, but there was no in between. 

“I killed my father.” Her movements stopped, but she didn’t pull her hand away. It felt like the silence between them was suffocating him. “He drank too much, choked on his own vomit one night and I let him. I probably would have killed him if he hadn’t died on his own. They tried to charge me, duty of rescue and what not, but I was sixteen.” It was the easier part to admit. The easier part to talk about.

“You didn’t have to tell me”, she said.

“You know I had to.”

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t get cheesy now.”

“I’m sorry.” She stepped closer. “I didn’t know it was… hard for you to be around her.”

“Yeah, you didn’t know. So stop being sorry, it’s just… how it is.”

She pulled him down to kiss him. He didn’t kiss her back. He didn’t resist. Her thumb brushed over his lips. “So what do we do now?”, she asked.

“I will manage.”

“You always say that.” Her lips brushed his cheek and he finally brought himself to wrap his arms around her. “We’re kinda becoming a family right now, so what if we move in together and she comes over to see the baby or have coffee with me, will that bother you?”

“We never talked about moving in together.”

“Stop changing the topic.” She leaned her head against his chest and he pulled her closer. “I mean… do you want to move in with me?”

“I guess it makes sense. You have to move out anyway, so it saves rent.”

“So we’re looking for an apartment?”

“Yes, but we need to find something for Em as well, or a roommate she doesn’t kill after two weeks.” He kissed her forehead. The scent of her hair calmed him down.

“Okay. We can do that.”

“You will say yes to anything right now just because you feel sorry for me.”

“I’m not –“

He kissed her before she could say another word. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Actually I don’t want to talk at all. Let’s just watch a movie or something.”

“Star Wars?”

“No way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me forever to finish this chapter. But here it is. I'm so happy I finally got this done.


	15. Chapter 15

“Is that seat taken?”

Weiss looked up and immediately blushed. She felt like slapping herself. Ilia looked at her as if nothing had happened. “Sure.”

“Great.” Ilia put down her tray and sat down next to her. She had picked pizza today, something Weiss didn’t dare to touch here. “How are you?”

The thing was they hadn’t talked ever since _the thing_ had happened. For weeks. And ever since Weiss had carefully avoided her while doing everything to stop herself from thinking about _the thing_. This hadn’t been a part of her plan. “Fine.” She looked down at her pasta and considered to just shove as much of it into her mouth as she could, pushing all manners aside as long as it would stop her from saying another word. “Just busy with stuff, you know?”

“Oh, right.” Ilia fumbled around with her juice box. It rather looked like she was studying it than actually trying to drink. “You know, I never get this right without breaking the straw.”

“It’s all about the angle. Wait.” She took the juice box out of her hands, careful not to touch her. “That’s what most people don’t get right.”

“I never thought about that.” Ilia smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a big thing.” She looked down at her plate.

“So… you said you’re busy at the moment?”

“Yes. I mean it’s not too bad, but… you know, trying to do two degrees at the same time and I’m already behind.”

“We could go and have coffee sometime if you need distraction.”

“Yeah, sure.” It wasn’t like they were actually going to have coffee together, Ilia was probably just trying to be nice.

“Great!” Ilia smiled at her. “Oh, there’s Blake.” She waved at her. Weiss took a sip from her water bottle.

It wasn’t like this was supposed to be a date or something, right?

 

* * *

 

“Do I look pregnant or just fat?”

“Pregnant”, Mercury said without looking up from his laptop.

“Fat”, Blake said without looking up from her book.

“You are both wrong.” Yang turned in front of the mirror. The good thing was that she was starting to show right around the time when it was getting cold enough to hide under comfortable sweaters. The bad thing was that she felt like she had suddenly exploded over the last weeks.

“How can we both be wrong when you gave us two options to choose from?”, Mercury asked.

“The right answer was pregnant, but you should have said I look absolutely stunning.”  The red tank top was already getting too tight, but today she definitely wanted to look pregnant. Just to prove that she was definitely not going to have any loud parties for a couple of years. “Can I borrow your black cardigan?”

“Which one? The long one is in the wash, but you can have the one with cashmere.” She got up and opened her wardrobe.

“That one will do.” Yang sat down next to Mercury and started running her hands through his hair to make it look a bit less like he had just woken up. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been reader ever since I got here. What are you doing with my hair?”

“Making you look like a responsible member of society in case we want this apartment.” She pecked his cheek, got up and took the cardigan Blake gave her. It was soft and she always felt like it made her look a bit more professional. “Come on, take your shoes on.”

The apartment had seemed too good to be true just from what Raven had told Yang. Close to campus, nice area, newly renovated, affordable. Yang was almost sure they wouldn’t get it because they couldn’t be the only ones who wanted it and every landlord would prefer people with actual jobs over two college students. But Raven had insisted on them trying it anyway.

“Try to act like someone you would rent an apartment to”, Yang said and took his hand.

“I wouldn’t rent an apartment to myself.”

“Yeah. Pretend.” She rang the doorbell.

Raven had just called the man they were supposed to meet Junior. He was tall and has that shady aura that made him seem horribly out of place. He would have belonged to a night club, not a nice apartment building in a beautiful avenue. “You must be Raven’s daughter.”

“Yes.” She gave him her most charming smile. “Yang Xiao Long.”

“Alright, come inside.” He didn’t wait for them to follow them, just turned around and walked back into the apartment. “You probably know everything you need to know from the resume I sent Raven. Legally I am obligated to inform you someone might have died in this apartment. Police wasn’t sure about that part, they just found the body here. We changed from carpets to parquet afterwards.”

Yang really hoped this wasn’t how all their appointments to view a flat would go. “It looks… nice”, Yang said. It really did. Bright and bigger than she had imagined.

“I’ll be honest, if you want it you can have it. I could rent it to a bunch of people, but I owe Raven something. Helped me out of some big trouble when I was a teenager.”

Oh. She really had pulled some strings. “We take it”, Yang said.

“What? We’re not going to talk about it?” Mercury raised his eyebrows.

“It’s cheap.”

“Special price for a friend”, Junior said.

“See? We won’t get anything comparable for that price. Is there anything you don’t like about it?”

Mercury shrugged. “Actually I don’t really care.”

“I’ll send the contact to your mum.” Junior typed something on his phone. “Glad we got it sorted out that easily. I’ll contact you for further details.”

“Awesome.” Yang smiled and grabbed Mercury’s hand. “Come on, let’s go celebrate.”

They didn’t talk until the house was out of sight. It was a beautiful day and for some reason he didn’t let go of her hand. “Doesn’t this sound shady to you?”, he asked after a while.

“Of course it does, but I also know if mum has sent us here she can handle it.

 “Probably. Do you like the apartment?”

“Yes.” She carefully studied the expression on his face. “Do you?”

“It’s… nice.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s enough space and everything.”

“Merc, what’s wrong?”

“You really insist on all that talking more about feelings stuff, huh?” He looked at her, brushing the back of her hand with his thumb. “It just feels weird to move out.”

“If you don’t want –“

“Yang, stop. I made a decision.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.”

“I lived at many places, but I guess before I moved in with Em I never really had something that felt like a… that was a place where I wanted to stay.”

“It will become a home soon enough. Before you know it the place is flooded with tiny baby socks and Emerald will come over all the time.”

“I know. I’m just not too enthusiastic about it right now.”

“Just wait until I have painted the walls.”

He smirked and leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose. “That’s something I didn’t agree on yet.”


	16. Chapter 16

_Just do it, Ilia. Text her. Ask her out. It doesn’t have to be a date, just see how it goes._ Ilia sighed and stared at her phone. Who was she kidding, she didn’t even know if Weiss was into girls.

Well, Weiss kissing her said a lot about that.

Ilia typed a short message and pressed send before she could change her mind. Make a move, people used to say, but no one had ever told her it would be so stressful. When her phone buzzed she felt like she was having a heart attack.

When Ilia got to the small coffee shop Weiss was already sitting at a table outside, two cups of coffee on the table in front of her. “I got you a cappuccino”, Weiss said. “That’s what you had last time. I can get you something else if you want, but I was in the area anyway and the queue is pretty long.”

“Cappuccino is perfect.”

“Okay, let’s have a walk.” Weiss got up and gave her one of the cups. “I need to move my legs.”

For a moment they just walked over the campus, sipping on their coffees without saying a word. Ilia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now. She had asked her out, kinda, and Weiss had bought her coffee, what was she supposed to do now? Talk to her? About what?

“My sister got engaged”, Weiss said after a while. “And I’m not sure if it’s just to spite my father because he would never approve of her choice.”

“Do you think she’d go that far?”

“Maybe not that far, but it’s not beyond her. She put it in the newspaper and I am sure _that_ was just out of spite. You know, first she runs away and now she’s engaged to the journalist who has written nothing but bad things about our company for years. I think she really likes Sienna, but I don’t want this whole wedding to become a huge dispute between her and my father.”

“You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have. I mean… she’s my sister.”

“But she’s the one who will have to fight that fight, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” Weiss sighed and sipped on her coffee. “I probably shouldn’t get that stressed about it.”

“You’re already stressing out enough about your exams.”

They reached the end of the campus. Weiss seemed to have a place in mind because she just kept walking, and Ilia decided it was probably best to follow her. They soon reached a small park, all complete with people walking a dog and a small lake with ducks. They sat down on a bench.  

“I think I had my first nervous breakdown here”, Weiss said. She was fumbling around with her cup and Ilia was actually scared she might spill the hot coffee all over herself. “I just didn’t expect university to be that stressful, you know?”

“You seem pretty stressed right now.”

“It’s not that bad, I’m just… you know, exams and everything.”

“Is it really just that?”

“How do you know you’re not straight?”

It came so sudden Ilia didn’t have time to react. She blinked, but Weiss looked seriously distressed, staring at her feet and biting her lip. Ilia tried really hard not to laugh. “If you’re asking that you’re probably not straight.”

“I was just asking how you knew, not… how did you know?”

“I just fell in love with girls and not boys, so… I knew pretty early on.”

“But how do you know for sure?”

_Did you ever do something bold?_

Ilia leaned down and cupped her cheek with her hand before she kissed her. This time she didn’t pull away. Her lips were soft and warm. “Now you should know”, Ilia said.

“You know, I’m not entirely sure.”

Ilia laughed. “Oh, really?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you already know something I don’t.”

“Weiss”, Ilia said, trying to sound adequately serious. “You’re so not straight.”

“Shut up”, Weiss said. And then she kissed her again.


	17. Chapter 17

The shop was a pink and blue nightmare. Yang and Mercury both hadn’t told anyone the sex of the baby, because they both weren’t fond of the idea of the apartment turning into an equally frightening nightmare of pink baby clothes.

“I don’t even know how you did that”, Yang said as Mercury threw a black fluffy baby jacket into their basket. “How did you find anything black in here?”

“Talent.” He smirked. “Weiss is still discussing buggies with that poor employee.”

“As long as she picks one.” She shrugged. “You know, we should just switch between dressing her in blue or pink every day to confuse people.”

“Well, you need to pick something.”

Yang sighed and went through a bunch of jumpers to pick one in yellow. “No use in buying too much baby stuff anyway, she will grow out of it faster than we know.”

“You seem awfully excited to do this.” Mercury brushed some strands of hair out of her face.

“My back is killing me and I just want to go home and eat pizza. But all my stuff is in boxes and there are a thousand things to do before we move, and then there’s university on top of that.”

“Don’t forget about the baby shower.”

“Do you have to remind me?” She sighed. “You know, I could be painting the walls in our new apartment right now. Everyone else knows everything better than me anyway, so why do I even try to pick stuff out? Everything I touch is probably poisoned or something.”

“Oh, come on.” He pulled her into his arms, softly stroking her back. “You’re going to be a great mum.”

“Do you really think that?”

“One of us has to be a decent parent.”

“No, stop that.” She just softly nudged him with her elbow because she didn’t want him to let go of her. “I need you to be a confident and awesome dad, do you hear me?”

“I’m doing my best, okay? I’m reading the book.” He kissed her forehead. “Those are just pregnancy hormones.”

“I shouldn’t have told you about pregnancy hormones, now you blame everything on them.” She tried to hug him as tightly as she could with her growing belly. The worst part of being pregnant was probably how much being close to him did make her feel better, and how much she physically craved his affection when he wasn’t there.

“Pick some plushies.”

“We’ll have enough plushies to drown in them soon enough. It will be a never ending plushie nightmare.”

“I always wanted to have a lion plushie when I was a kid. One of those giant plushies, when you’re small they seem so big.”

“Dad once got me a giant teddy for my birthday.” She looked up to him. “If you find a big lion plushies you can get it for her.”

“Okay.” He pecked her lips. “I’ll come over tonight to help you packing.”

“You know, that white jumper with the penguin on it is kinda cute.”

“Then we should get it.” He let go of her and she felt like pouting all over again, even when he took the jumper and put it into their basket. “Let’s go and see what Weiss is up to before she buys the entire store.”

They found Weiss in an aisle with everything you could possibly need to bath a child. “There you are”, she said, the basket in her hand already filled with more than Yang thought she would ever need. “I found a buggy. It’s in the budget and I convinced the employee to give you a discount. I also picked a car seat. Your dad asked me to get one.”

“Do we need all of that?”, Mercury asked, pointing at her basket.

“Yes, you do. Read the book I bought you. Did you get everything from the list?”

“Most of it I guess”, Yang said. “Are we done? I still wanted to paint the walls at our new place.”

“I thought it would be better if Ruby and I did that later. I’m not sure if you should breathe in the paint.”

“Leaves us more time to pack”, Mercury said, pulling Yang closer. “We should if we want to move this weekend.”

“Alright.” Yang sighed. The worst part about Weiss getting overprotective was that it made her panic even more. Mercury seemed to know that and only hugged her now to make her feel better, which in fact made nothing better, it only made it so much harder to be mad at him. “Can we leave?”

“I think we got everything. Do you have your mum’s credit card?”

“Of course I do.”

Yang felt like she had run a marathon when they had finally loaded her dad’s car with everything they had bought. Weiss was horribly scared she might overdo herself again and insisted on unloading the car with Ruby at Yang’s new place later and drop her off at her dormitory.

“Moving out feels weird”, Yang said when she closed the door to her dorm room behind her. “I will miss Blake.”

“She’ll come over all the time anyway.”

“Just like Emerald.” Yang sat down on her bed, hugging her belly while Mercury started to put her books into boxes. “You know, the worst thing is that the baby always falls asleep when I walk around and wakes up when I sit still.”

“Is that what’s always keeping you up all night?”

“Yes.” Among other things. But it was far worse when he wasn’t around. “Do you think Emerald and Blake will get along?”

“If she gets along with anyone it’s her.” Mercury closed the box and wrote something on it in his messy handwriting. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m trying.”

He sat down next to her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and stroking her belly with the other. She was never sure if he did that because he actually wanted to or because he knew it calmed her down. “Em doesn’t want anyone worse, so she’ll try to get along with her.”

“How are you that calm about… all of this?” She looked at him.

“I don’t have the pregnancy hormones.” He shrugged. “I am not calm all the time, but there is no point in freaking out around you.”

“I don’t want you to keep anything from me.”

“It’s… terrifying. But it’s mostly about me, you know? I feel like I won’t be a good father or like I can’t love the child enough, but I know you’ll be an amazing mum and that you will love it more than anyone could, so I won’t screw this child up.”

“You won’t screw up this child. Because you’re not your father.”

“You knew him that well?”

“I know that because you actually care. Before she’s even born.” She kissed the tip of his nose.

He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “Maybe he did at some point.”

“But I’m also not your mum. If you ever became even a bit like your father I would throw you out with my bare hands, okay?”

“Be brutal.” He pulled her closer.

“You have no idea what my brutal can look like.”


	18. Chapter 18

As much as he tried, he didn’t know how to make this apartment feel like a home. He had let Yang pick the wall colours in a weak moment and now he was sitting in a living room with bright yellow walls, almost golden, trying to fit all his comics into the bookshelves and feeling weirdly out of place.

“Take pictures before you make a mess out of this place”, Emerald said. “I unwrapped all your plates and glasses.”

“Thank you.” He turned around and looked at her. “Are you leaving?”

“I guess. It’s pretty late already. I… I’ve got something for you. Well, not really for you.” She pulled a small gift out of her bag, professionally wrapped. “I know Yang invited me to the baby shower, but I have to work anyway and the only person I really know and talk to is Yang, so I thought I’d give it to you now.”

“You know, I’m not too fond of that whole baby shower thing either. But Yang wants it.” He carefully unwrapped the gift.

“The lady in the store kept asking me if it was going to be a boy or a girl, I didn’t know it was that bad.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “It was hard to find something that wasn’t pink or blue.”

“It’s going to be a girl”, he said. “We didn’t really want to tell anyone before she’s born, but I guess we don’t have to be afraid of getting too many pink princess dresses form you.”

“A girl, huh? They’re outmatching you, Merc.”

“I never had a chance against Yang anyway.” He opened the box and smiled. “I didn’t know cats came in green.”

“You can confront her with the harsh truth of reality later. It’s filled with god knows what, but it crackles when you squeeze it. The lady in the store said babies love that.”

He looked at the small plushie. It was hard to get used to the whole baby thing, to truly realise that he would have a small human to care for very soon. “I’m sure it’ll be her favourite.” For a moment he didn’t know what to say. But whatever he could have said, she knew it anyway. “Don’t get on Blake’s nerves too much.”

“Don’t screw this whole family thing up. I don’t think any other woman could endure you for longer than a month.”

“I can always get on your nerves.”

“Yeah, you think that.” She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

“I’ll call you.”

“Do that or I’ll come for you.”

The apartment felt horribly empty without her. Empty and quiet. Mercury lasted five minutes, unpacking boxes, staring at the cat plushie, thinking about the nursery they still hadn’t prepared at all, before he went to the bedroom. Yang was still sitting on the bed and folding clothes.

“Are you done in the living room?”, she asked without looking up.

“Almost.” He sat down on the bed. The bed was new, but the closet was his old one. He had no idea how she had already managed to fit most of their clothes in there. He also had no idea why he had agreed on lilac walls (he was pretty sure lilac didn’t look like that, but maybe he was confusing it with some other flower) and yellow bedsheets, but here he was, surrounded by more colours than a normal person could possibly endure.

“Sitting around all day long was so frustrating”, she said. “Dad could have at least let me carry the light boxes.”

“You did a good job at coordinating us.” He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands on her growing belly. “So we live here now.”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?” She leaned against him. “There’s so much space.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” She threw one of his shirts back into the laundry basket. “Let’s just order something, I don’t want to cook.”

“What do you want?”

“A burger. French fries. Chicken nuggets. One hundred chicken nuggets.”

“Please don’t eat one hundred chicken nuggets or you’ll give birth to a chicklet.”

“I’ll share them with you if you want.”


	19. Chapter 19

The idea of a baby shower had never appealed to Yang, but she had been a fool doubting Weiss. It was less of a baby shower and more of a nice afternoon with friends. They still didn’t have a dining table in their new apartment, so Weiss had ordered everyone to bring pillows and blankets so they could sit on the floor. Snacks, cake, candles and music, presents on top of it all. She could get used to that.  

“This baby already got more presents than I got for my birthday.” Yang unfolded a bathrobe Blake had gotten her, black with tiny cat ears on the hood. “This is so sweet, I’m going to cry.”

“Please don’t.” Blake smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I love it.” She folded the bathrobe and laid it on the coffee table to the other presents. “I’ll put it into the commode I wasn’t allowed to build on my own. Merc said he’d do it, but I don’t trust him with it, so I’ll wait until Ruby has time for it.”

“Next week”, Ruby mumbled, her mouth full of chocolate cookies. “Or I’ll do it later as I’m here already.”

“As soon as that baby is out I will rip out trees and no one can stop me.” She stroked her belly. She was at a point where most of her clothes didn’t fit anymore and she was switching between the few maternity clothes she had bought and Mercury’s shirts and sweaters. It was frustrating. “I need to get more cake”, she said and got up.

Even though they had the most important furniture the apartment was still almost empty. Considering how messy Mercury’s room looked all the time he didn’t have that much stuff, and he had left most of his furniture at his old place. At least they had a bed, but most of the other furniture they had already bought was still in boxes, just like most of her stuff.

“Weiss, do we still have cake left?”, Yang asked when she walked into the kitchen.

Weiss and Ilia flinched apart as if she had caught them doing something forbidden. “How many pieces did you have already?”, Weiss asked, her voice a bit higher than usually.

“The baby wants more. It’s not my fault.”

“Oh, sure.” Weiss rolled her eyes and opened the fridge to take the rest of the cake out. Yang had put it there so no one would eat it and she would have something left over for tomorrow, and maybe a bit for Mercury. Probably rather for a midnight snack tonight.

“Thanks for the plushie by the way”, Yang said to Ilia. “It’s super adorable.”

“The chameleon?” Weiss put a piece of cake on a fresh plate. Ilia nodded. “I figured it would be yours, you like… rainbow colours.” Weiss looked at Ilia for a moment as if she had just realised something very fundamental. Ilia rolled her eyes and Yang eventually had to admit to herself that she had absolutely no idea what was going on between the two of them.

“I’ll go back to the living room.” Yang took her cake. “Don’t overwork yourselves in here.” She was pretty sure that wasn’t what they would be doing.

She sat back down on the floor, balancing the plate on her way too huge belly. “I think Weiss is into Ilia”, she whispered to Blake.

“You too? I thought something was up for ages.”

“Let’s see if they can handle this on their own. I’m not going to watch them pine after each other for years before they finally make a move.”

 

­­­­

* * *

 

“No, Merc! I swear if you do that one more time, I will make you sleep on the balcony.” Yang buried her head in her hands. “Take the others screws.”

“The manual says –“

“The manual is wrong!” She would have picked it up from the floor if that wouldn’t have meant she had to move and that got harder and harder every day. Bending over to screw their new dinner table together was one of the things that were absolutely no fun anymore, so Mercury had to do it, and now she knew why she hadn’t trusted him with the furniture in the nursery.

“Can’t you just go to the kitchen and check if the ice cream is still frozen or something?” He looked like he was about to throw the whole table out of the window.

“What if the table crushes down on my belly and kills the baby?”

“Your belly doesn’t even fit under that table anymore. Are you trying to make me nervous?”

“I’m trying to make you not screw this up”, she said. He threw the manual at her and she caught it, laughing. “You deserved that one.”

“Well, the table is done.” He sat up. “Now I just have to turn it around.”

She got up to inspect his work. When she was convinced it wouldn’t collapse she ruffled his hair. “I can help you.”

“No, I’ll do it with your dad.” He threw everything back into Yang’s toolbox.

The doorbell rang and she got up. “I could still lift that table up all by myself”, she said.

“The worst part is I know that you could.”

Taiyang was carrying a large casserole dish and Ruby the cake so Yang couldn’t hug either of them. “I’ll go and put that in the oven”, Taiyang said. “It’s almost ready.”

“We’re done with the dining table, you just need to turn it around. Merc wouldn’t let me do it. Come, Ruby, let me take that and take off your coat.”

“It’s fine.” Ruby still gave her the cake. “Just sit down and relax.”

“Oh no, I am done relaxing. You can help Merc with the table if you want.” Yang followed her father into the kitchen.

“I’m surprised. The kitchen is cleaner than I expected.” He turned on the oven, put the casserole dish inside and only then took off his jacket.

“I cleaned it because I knew you would say something.”

“How are you?”

She leaned against the kitchen counter. “Good. Baby likes to kick me in the kidney. Mum said I did that too, so I guess it’s definitely mine.”

“Have you thought about what you want to do for graduation? Go out for dinner with the family?”

“Early dinner with the family, then we’ll go out clubbing.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Absolutely. Weiss said she’s going to drive, so she will look out for me anyway. I’ll be fine.”

He sighed. “Alright. I can take care of the rest here, keep your boyfriend and your sister company.”

“Be nice to him.” It was meant more seriously than she dared to admit.

Ruby and Merc were already sitting at the dinner table, now turned the right way. “Did he already bore you with his comics?”, Yang asked.

“He’ll borrow me some of them later.” Ruby grinned and got up. “I’ll go get plates.”

“Oh yes, don’t let me carry the plates. Way too heavy.” Yang sat down next to Mercury, reaching for his hand under the table. “Dad promised to be nice”, she said.

“He’s probably still scared I’ll run away with the child.”

She smirked. The thought that he even considered running away _with_ the child and not from it was endearing. “He had some bad experiences. But that also means his expectations are low, just don’t die and don’t dump me.”

“I got the criminal record, that’s a new one.”

She kissed his cheek. “Better don’t mention that tonight, he’s trying to warm up to you.”

“Oh, I have absolutely no intention to talk about that with him. Ever.” He pecked her lips and got up. “I’ll help Ruby with the plates.”

“Don’t forget the lemonade. The doctor told me to drink more.”

“Water. She told you to drink more water.”

Taiyang and Mercury awkwardly ignored each other while they prepared the table and sat down to eat. For a moment Yang shoved a potato left and right on her plate before she looked up. “We’re almost done preparing the nursery”, Yang said eventually. “There is a bookshelf we still need to put up, but I don’t trust Merc with that. Maybe you two can do it later while Ruby helps me with my broken headphones?”

Mercury shot her an angry glare that told her she definitely had to pay for this later, but he had never stayed true to those threats. “Sure”, he said.

“It’s best you help us”, Taiyang said. “I don’t want to accidentally put it where you don’t want to have it.”

“You will figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

“You need to make sure there aren’t any electrical cables in the wall.” Taiyang put down the thing that Mercury had no idea of what it was supposed to be, but he seemed to be content with what he was doing. That made one of them. “And then… well, you know the drill”, Taiyang said as he put up the drill to screw the bookshelf to the wall. Mercury wasn’t sure if Yang would kill him if he didn’t laugh at that joke.

There was no doubt Taiyang could have hung it up on his own, but she also knew Yang just wanted them to spend time together. To _bond_. What a horrible idea. “I guess that’s it”, he said, trying to find a way around it.

“You did a nice job with the nursery.”  

“Yang did most of it.” She had picked the colour of the walls, a soft mint that Emerald loved, which was the reason why he had agreed on it, but he had to admit that the small room looked adorable. Yang had starting nesting about a week ago, which had ended in her washing tons of tiny baby clothes that ended up all over the apartment before she had sorted them into the commode, putting fresh sheets on the crib and decorating the room with all the plushies friends had bought for them. Ruby had hung up a couple of pictures she and Yang had painted as children, a large photograph of Summer was hanging right above the crib. The room just screamed everything was alright, in a way that made him incredibly uncomfortable. But that was one of the things he didn’t dare to talk about when she was around. “We will probably move the crib to the bedroom for the first months, or have a second one in there. Someone told Yang that makes the nights way easier.”

“Yang didn’t tell me you had hung up the picture of Summer.” He fumbled around with Yang’s toolbox.

“Ruby did that.”

“It’s sad you didn’t get to meet her, she would have liked you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I guess. Yang talks about her a lot.”

“Does she?” He looked up. “You know, if you have any questions, if you need anything… you can always call me. I went through this twice after all.”

“Sure. I will.” They probably both knew that he never would, but after all it was a peace offering, and for the sake of Yang and the child he wouldn’t decline it.

“Having the crib in the bedroom is a good idea by the way. Maybe one you can move around, then she can sleep in the living room while you study or read.” He closed the toolbox. “Anyway, the bookshelf is ready. I’ll go and see if Yang needs help with anything else before I leave.”

Taiyang and Ruby left the kitchen cleaner than it had been before they came. Mercury sat down on the sofa while Yang showered, zapping through the TV programme and trying to ignore the growing anxiety that always came in the evening when he didn’t find anything to distract himself with. He didn’t look up when Yang came back, already in her pyjama, until she sat down next to him and pulled him into a kiss.

“What was that for?”, he asked, loosely wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

“For not fighting with my dad. I think he slowly starts to like you.”

“Acceptance. The final stage of grieving over the fact that I was the one to get you pregnant.” He looked at her and then leaned his forehead against her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. There were some things that he still didn’t dare to tell her. That he still felt like he didn’t belong here and that eventually someone would pull him out of this safe and fluffy world full of tiny baby socks and muslin squares with kittens on them, harsh reality crushing on him once again. Without her he probably would have gone insane long ago. “I love you”, he mumbled.

It took her a moment to react. She turned around to look at him. “What?”

“I said I loathe your pyjama.”

“Idiot.” She stroked his cheek with her hand. “I –“

He kissed her before she could actually say it. He knew it anyway. “I’ll go to bed. Early lecture tomorrow.” He got up.

“Don’t steal all the blankets again”, she said. When he left the living room he was smiling.


	20. Chapter 20

No one had told Mercury that babies were so tiny. It had been a week and he still wasn’t used to how frighteningly breakable her small arms and legs were.

“She’s not an ugly baby. A lot of babies are super ugly.“ Emerald was holding Rose in her arms, and the smile on her face said a lot about what she really thought about her.

“Well, I hope she’s not. I’m not staying up all night for an ugly baby.” He smirked. “She got it from me.”

“Rather her mum. Where is Yang anyway?”

“Sleeping before her parents come over.” Yang had set a strict rule of only one visitor per day, but Emerald didn’t count because she wouldn’t be mad if Yang didn’t talk to her, and Yang still wanted her parents to get along better, so inviting them both was her last attempt at forcing them to talk to each other after Christmas had ended in a weird game Taiyang, Raven and Mercury all trying to be as far away from each other as possible. “Should I take her?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll give her back when she’s starting to cry.” Right now Rose was sleeping peacefully. She probably wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.

“How is it going with Blake?”

“Still surprisingly well. We both want to be left alone most of the time, but she’s way better at cooking than you.” Emerald nuzzled Rose’s head with her nose. “Your dad is a horrible cook, but you can always come over and I’ll buy you pizza.”

“I’ll remind her of that.”

“Your dad is an idiot. When you hit puberty I’ll be your favourite aunt.”

Mercury smirked. “You love her.”

“Shut up.” She softly stroked Rose’s back. “Don’t listen to your dad, ever. That’s the first advice I have for living with that idiot.”

When Emerald left he was alone with Rose again. She protested when he tried to let her sleep in her crib so he kept holding her, watching a documentary about sea creatures while Rose couldn’t seem to decide whether she wanted to nap or not. Yang had said everything she needed was lots of love and kisses, but that seemed way easier for her than him. So right now he tried to work on the loving part, swore to leave the whole being strict part of parenting to Yang, and stuck to tiny kisses when no one was watching.

Yang got up before her parents came over. That’s what she had promised, that Mercury wouldn’t have to be alone with them, because having both of them over was awkward enough. He almost felt guilty because she still looked like a zombie. “How is she?”

“Fine. Emmy loves her, but she would never admit it.”

“Of course she does.” Yang sat down next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m dead. Next time you want a child we’ll get a puppy instead.”

“Look at her and tell her you don’t want her.”

“I love her and she knows that.” Yang leaned down to kiss her tiny head. “She’s the cutest baby in the world.”

“She’s alright.”

“You’re so affectionate.” Yang rolled her eyes and got up when the doorbell rang. “We have to work on that.”

“No, you’re gorgeous and you know that”, Mercury whispered to Rose. “But if I tell you that in front of her she will expect compliments from me as well. But they’re exclusive.” He heard voices in the hallway and sighed. “I hope you like your grandparents because they’re the only ones you’ll get. But I don’t like them either. If you don’t like them just start to cry and I’ll get you out.”

“Where is my granddaughter?” Taiyang appeared in the living room door, grinning from one ear to the other. “Oh, there she is!” He sat down next to Mercury and he carefully gave Rose to him. It always felt weird for him to let someone else hold her. He had no issues when it was Yang and surprisingly neither with Emerald, but he couldn’t help but to think Taiyang would just drop her. It was ridiculous, he had raised two daughters after all.

“I’ll make coffee”, Mercury said and got up.

“How comes it you look way better than Yang?”, Raven asked. She sat down next to Taiyang and of course she only had eyes for the baby. Not that it bothered him at all.

“Caffeine.” Yang sat down in next to her parents. “Can you make me a cup of tea? Or a hot chocolate? I could die for a hot chocolate.”

“Sure.” He would grow a cocoa plant in the kitchen if that gave him an excuse to stay away from her parents.

When he came back with coffee and Yang’s hot chocolate her parents were still staring at Rose, but they were both sitting closer together than he had ever seen them. He put the tray on the coffee table Weiss had brought them a week before Rose had been born and sat down in the armchair because no way he would sit down on the sofa with the others.

“She’s beautiful.” Taiyang looked at Mercury while he said it. He felt like he was somehow supposed to respond, but he had no idea what to say.

“She got it from her mum”, Yang said and grinned.

“She looks just like you when you were young.” Raven looked at Rose and smiled. “Look at her tiny hands.”

It usually went like that. Everyone was awestruck by how cute she was, squeezed her tiny little cheeks and hands and feet, until Rose got hungry and visitors left. It always left him nervous, as if they weren’t people Yang trusted more than anything. Yang insisted on taking pictures of Rose and the proud grandparents and Mercury felt like at this point there were more pictures of Rose than of him.

Raven and Taiyang left when Rose started to whimper. At least Mercury got the dishes done while Yang was feeding her. When he was done she sat on the couch, holding Rose in her arms. “She won’t go to sleep unless I hold her.” Yang sounded like she was about to cry.

“I’ll take her.” Rose protested a bit, but when Mercury held her she closed her eyes again. He sat down on the sofa. “She’s always a bit clingy when too much is happening around her.”

“Do you think we’re overstimulating her?”

“Don’t make me panic.”

“You got that whole dad thing down way better than me.” Yang cuddled up to him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Oh, come on. I have no idea what I’m doing. That’s just sleep deprivation, at this point I usually get most of my university stuff done.” Most of the time he just felt out of it, way too tired to let the situation freak him out. Keeping a tiny human alive was more stressful than he had expected.

“You’re turning into super dad.”

Well, he could only get better than his own. But being even half as bad was bad enough. “I just have to grow boobs and I can replace you.”

“I went through nineteen hours of labour, you both owe me.”

Mercury smirked and stroked Rose’s head. “She threw her juice box at me when I fell asleep. Next time she wants a child I’ll steal one that’s already out.”

“He acts like I didn’t do all the hard work.” She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “He wasn’t the worst choice for having a child with, though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I jumped around a bit. But even after watching all seasons of Call the Midwife I didn't feel properly qualified to write a birth scene. But who wants that when you can have cute Rose instead? 
> 
> I will probably jump a big around with future chapters, because there is only so much stuff you can write with Rose being a week old. I just want the fluuuuuff.


	21. Chapter 21

“I can call in sick. Or tell them my daughter is sick, they let you stay at home for that.”

“Yang’s, it’s fine.” Mercury was still holding Rose in his arms as he had all morning so Yang could get ready. He walked up and down the room because that was the only thing that seemed to calm her down right now. “Your dad will come over, you don’t have to worry.”

“Promise you’ll go see a doctor if it gets worse.” Yang stepped closer and kissed Rose’s forehead. “Don’t give your daddy a hard time, but tell him if you need anything. You know, give him a hard time if you want. He can take it. What is she even wearing?”

“She’s Wonder Woman. Strong and independent. She loves the comic.”

“Don’t think you can pull her on your side like that.” She got on the tip of her toes to kiss him. “Okay, I’ll go now. Give me updates.”

“I will.”

“I’ll call during my lunch break.” She kissed Rose again. “Oh, I will miss you.”

“Just go already. Don’t be late on your first day.” He pecked her cheek. “We’ll be fine. I’ll send you pictures and update you about her temperature. I’ll make sure she drinks enough. I won’t leave her out of sight. I promise I’ll try not to fight with your dad. Just go already, she’ll never fall asleep before you leave.”

“I hate work already.” She sighed and placed a few last kisses all over Rose’s face. “Okay, I’ll go now.” One last kiss on Rose’s head. “I’ll _really_ go now.”

Rose started to cry right after Yang had left the apartment. Mercury sighed and stroked her back. “Don’t make her come back and quit that job.” He began to walk up and down again. “I’ll pick your drunk ass up from every party if you let me sleep for half an hour now, okay?”

Of course she didn’t calm down. When Taiyang rang the doorbell Mercury was almost glad he was here, and he almost didn’t mind when he picked the still whimpering Rose out of his arms.

“There is my little girl. Yang said she has a bit of a cold, huh?”

“Mhm. Kept me up all night.” Partly because she had barely slept, partly because even when she did the thought of her suffocating in her sleep had scared him too much to rest.

“It’s alright, I’ll have her from here on.” He stroked her head for a moment. At least Rose didn’t immediately stop crying, still showing a bit of solidarity that made Mercury proud. “You can get some rest if you want.”

He really didn’t want to. Not that he wasn’t tired, he probably could have fallen asleep just like that, standing in the hallway with his father in law awkwardly avoiding to look at him. But leaving Rose alone with anyone but Yang still felt weird. “I’m in the bedroom if you need anything”, he said.

“Don’t worry, we’re having everything under control. Don’t you think, Rosebud?”

Rose was still crying. She didn’t agree and if Mercury hadn’t been seriously scared of falling asleep with her still in his arms he wouldn’t have left them alone.

He went to bed, pulled the blanket over him and was asleep before he could worry about it any longer.

 

* * *

 

He woke up from his phone buzzing aggressively right next to him. It took him an eternity to realise it wouldn’t stop. He groaned and almost knocked over a water bottle when he reached for it. It was Yang, so he probably had to answer. He picked up the call and closed his eyes again. “Yeah?”

“Lunch break. How is it going?”

“Mh.” He was way too tempted to just fall asleep again. “I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was asleep. Your dad is taking care of her right now.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Would you feel better if I said now?” He stretched. He definitely needed some coffee. “I can go and have a look. How is work?”

“Alright. People are nice. I miss Rose though.”

“You’ve been gone for what, four hours?” He finally got up.

“Long enough. Just tell me she’s okay and happy, yeah?”

“As happy as you get with a cold.” The rest of the apartment was suspiciously quiet. He found them both in the living room, Taiyang sitting on the sofa and reading a book while Rose peacefully slept in her crib. She was actually asleep, he stepped closer to make sure of that. “She’s still alive”, he whispered, which earned him a weird gaze from Taiyang.

“Is she asleep?”

“Mhm.”

“Say dad hello from me”, Yang said, now almost whispering as well. “And send pictures.”

“Your phone is full of pictures of her.”

“Yeah, but I’ve already seen all of them.”

“Alright, I will. Have fun at work.”

“Love you, bye.” She hung up and Mercury could feel Taiyang’s gaze still resting on him, but he chose to ignore it for as long as he could. That meant as long as it took to snap a picture of Rose and send it to Yang, then to sit as far away from him on the couch as possible.

“Yang called?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure you’re both very worried, being a new parent can be an overwhelming experience.”

“I’ll go and make coffee”, Mercury said and got up.

“Oh yeah, coffee sounds like a great idea.”

The worst part was that Taiyang actually followed him into the kitchen. There was an amount of father figure bullshit he was ready to endure, and that was absolutely none. And right now he didn’t have an escape strategy.

“I cooked potato soup by the way. Yang loves it, but she told me not to make it too spicy for you.”

Who the hell made potato soup spicy in the first place? “Great.” He turned on the coffee machine. Maybe jumping out of the window was an option.

“I just fed Rose by the way. She’s a gorgeous little girl, you did a good job with –“

Rose saved him. Mercury turned around as soon as she started crying. “I’ll see what she wants”, he said and left the kitchen before Tai could offer any more praise or advice.

Rose just wanted to be held. Mercury stroked her back and sat down on the couch. “Good job”, he whispered. “That was close.”

But with Rose in his arms it was also harder to run away. Taiyang came back shortly after, putting a tray with two cups of coffee, sugar, milk and cookies (wherever he had found those) on the coffee table. “Does she need to get changed?”

“No, she just wants a bit of attention.” He put sugar and milk into his cup. He had gotten quite good at doing things with one hand now. Rose reached for his cup, but he had also gotten quite good at not letting her get her hands on anything she shouldn’t touch.

“Napping on daddy’s chest is great, right, Rosebud?”

Mercury had never expected it to happen, but Taiyang calling him daddy was way worse than when Yang did it. “Well, she’s not napping right now.”

“She slept a lot when you were sleeping.”

He sipped on his coffee so he didn’t have to reply. Rose started to whimper again and he leaned forward to put his cup down, but Taiyang took it out of his hands before he could. Mercury got up to walk up and down with Rose, that usually calmed her down. She probably just wanted to remind him that she was sick and feeling miserable, but it still had him on edge, still worried him more than he had ever planned to be worried about someone. He didn’t even know what he was doing, right now it felt like he was just barely not screwing up at keeping her alive.

“You’re really good at being a dad.”

He didn’t dare to look up. For some reason it meant something coming from Taiyaing, coming from someone who had absolutely hated him and who had raised two daughters himself. Actually done quite a decent job at it. It meant something and he hated it without even knowing why.

“I think she needs to get changed”, Mercury said. It was a lie, but this had already been more father bonding time than he had ever planned to endure.

At first he had hated Rose’s room. It was bright, safe, homely and everything he had never had as a child. But somehow Rose had made it all easier. She didn’t belong anywhere near his childhood or his life. But all this, from the friendly plushies on the shelve above her bed to the blanket Summer had sewed for Yang lying on the armchair, was her life now, and for some reason she had decided he was a part of it too.

He sat down in the armchair with her. She had calmed down now, but she still wasn’t feeling like falling asleep again. So he just stroked her back and hoped she would change her mind before he could regret running away from his coffee.

The doorbell woke her up again. “I hope that’s important”, he mumbled when he got up, Rose crying as he stroked her back and left the room to see who it was.

It was Weiss. Out of all people it was Weiss. Rose cried as if she wanted to keep reminding him she was still there and still the most important person in this apartment right now, or maybe not him but Taiyang and Weiss who greeted each other as if he was her father as well.

“I hoped she had fallen asleep”, Taiyang said when he acknowledged Mercury’s existence again. “I can take her again. You two should get yourselves something to eat.”

“I’ll heat up the soup”, Weiss said. “Come on.”

He let Taiyang pick up Rose and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling it left him with when he followed Weiss into the kitchen. “Did Yang send you?” he whispered.

“Of course she did. She’s worried.”

He leaned against the kitchen counter. “I thought that’s why her dad is here.”

“She is worried _because_ he’s here. I’m not here because of Rose, I’m here because she’s scared you two will pick a fight.”

Yang definitely knew him well. “Well, I’m definitely not going to –“

“Oh, shut up. I know how you two can be. He’s taking the whole dad thing very seriously and you don’t like that.”

“I don’t care if he dads Yang or Rose, I just don’t want him to dad me.”

“Well, do you want him to go back to him glaring daggers at you? No? Then make up your mind what you want this relationship to be like.”

“Do I really have to explain to you of all people that it’s not that easy, Weiss?”

“Give him something to do. Give him a role.” She turned around to take a look at the soup on the stove. “You’re responsible for what this relationship is like too, you know?”

He sighed. “I never asked for a dad.”

“Then don’t see him as your new dad but rather as your daughter’s grandfather. Go now, I’ll warm up the soup for you.”

Taiyang was sitting on the couch, softly rocking the crib Rose was lying in. Mercury sat down as far away from him as possible. “Is she asleep?” he whispered.

“Yes. She must be tired.”

He took a deep breath. “You think you can look after her next Thursday for a couple of hours? I have an appointment with a professor.”

“Sure!” Taiyang smiled at him, way more enthusiastically than he would have expected. “I’d love to.”

Mercury gave him the hint of a smirk. Maybe he could live with him being Rose’s grandfather. “Yeah, just don’t drop her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's aaaaaaaaabsolutely ridiculous that I literally didn't update this story for four months, but listen, the relationship between Taiyang and Mercury is so hard to write. So I just went and wrote almost 100k of other fanfictions instead. Yeah but anyway. I feel like the main plot of this story is pretty much done at this point, so I will most likely post one or two more chapters to wrap it all up. If there's anything you don't want me to leave out just let me know in a comment! But don't worry, I'm absolutely not done writing G&G family fluff...


	22. Chapter 22

“So… we’re not dating, right?”

Ilia looked up from her phone. “Huh?”

“Just making sure, you know?” Weiss clung to her bucket of popcorn as if she could throw it at her in case she’d panic. “I mean it’s good to know what you’re at.”

“We’re standing in line to watch a movie that neither of us cares about because we’re only here to make out in the back row and you’re trying to tell me you don’t want this to be a date?”

“I didn’t say that!” Weiss blushed and stared down at her popcorn. She felt like everyone was watching them. “I just wanted to… make sure, you know?”

“Oh. _Oh_. You were asking me if…”

“No, I wasn’t. Anyway, who's texting you? Anything interesting?”

Ilia laughed. Weiss felt her fingertips on her arm and then her lips on her cheek. “Yeah, we are dating.”

“What? Just like that?”

“What did you expect? I’m a cheap girl and you bought me popcorn.”

“Just kiss her already,” someone said behind them. “She’s hot and she wants you. Don’t screw this up.”

Weiss didn’t dare to turn around. Another girl started to laugh behind her. “Don’t be mean, Coco.”

The doors to the movie theatre finally opened. Weiss felt her cheeks burn. She didn’t want to turn around, and if she was completely honest, she just wanted to throw the popcorn at someone and run away. “Come on before the good seats are taken,” Ilia said, her hand running up and down her spine.

The two girls sat down far away from them, but Weiss still didn’t dare to look at Ilia when they had sat down. She couldn’t wait for the lights to go out and the earth to swallow her. She just had to get through the movie. Get through the movie and go home, wait until she didn’t have to think about this ever again.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ilia asked.

Weiss took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure.”

“Hey, this is… it really isn’t a big deal.” She reached for her hand and squeezed it. It took Weiss a moment to squeeze it back. “I mean I thought it was clear we were dating, but if you weren’t it was good of you to ask.”

“But we –“

Ilia leaned forward and kissed her. “If you don’t want to date me tell me, but you don’t need to feel bad for asking.”

She wanted to protest but then stopped herself. “So we’re like… officially…”

“Yes.” Ilia kissed the tip of her nose. “And those girls were just jealous. You’ve heard her, I’m hot.” She smirked. “Now shut up before they throw us out.”

It was hard not to smile. “Don’t tell me when to shut up.”

“If they throw us out I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”

“I’ll pretend I don’t know you first.”

“The popcorn stays with me.”

Weiss leaned her hand against Ilia’s shoulder and smiled. “Shut up, the movie is about to begin.”

 

* * *

 

Professor Goodwitch looked up from the sheet of paper in front of her. “I can’t possibly let you pass with that essay.”

“It’s the last grade I need to graduate.” Mercury tried to look adequately miserable while stopping Rose from reaching for one of the shiny paperweights on the table. Throwing things on the floor was her favourite thing right now and Mercury already dreaded the day she would learn to walk. “I’m a single father. I need to work to feed my child. Do you want us to end up on the street?”

“Mr Black.” She raised her eyebrows. “I am well aware that child is Professor Xiao Long’s granddaughter.

Well, fuck. “I wrote most of that essay late at night with one hand while Rose chewed on my hand because she was teething.” That wasn’t even a lie. Rose’s first tooth had been a nightmare. As if she wanted to prove his point she started to cry. Her pacifier was lying on the floor and Mercury reached for his bag to get her a clean one. “Teething was really bad”, he said. “This is nothing, she has her mum’s temper.” He found a pacifier, gave it to her and she calmed down. He wiped away her tears. “Her cheek was swollen, she had a bit of a fever, refused to sleep unless someone was holding her…”

Goodwitch looked like she couldn’t get him out of her office fast enough. “I guess I can give you another week to rework it”, she said. “But this is your last chance.”

He picked up the pacifier from the floor and smirked. “You won’t regret it.”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

“Come on, we both don’t want me to stick around forever.” He got up, one arm holding Rose and the other his bag. “I’ll mail it to you in a week.”

Taking Rose to campus was the best thing ever. Rose was adorable and everyone loved her. A group of freshman girls fawned over her and let him skip the line in the coffee shop, the barista who had absolutely no idea that Rose had only recently moved from just milk to milk and mashed potatoes gave her a cookie for free. Mercury left the coffee shop, sitting down in the shadow of a tree and taking a bite from the cookie that Rose eyed with great interest. “We’ll talk about that when you stop spitting out the peas I make you. Maybe I’ll let you try bananas next week.”

“You’re cruel.” Emerald looked like she was about to fall asleep right there when she finally found him. “Eating cookies in front of your child?”

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on yet. Can you take her?”

“Yeah.” Emerald threw her bag next to his and sat down. Rose wasn’t happy with the changed situation, especially being away from the interesting thing in Mercury’s hand, but Emerald’s necklace quickly distracted her.

“Make sure she doesn’t eat it. She wants to put everything into her mouth right now.” He opened his back and pulled out a box with chopped cucumbers. “Let her chew on that. She likes to chew on stuff at the moment.”

“As long as it’s not my necklace.” But she still smiled, stroking Rose’s first soft blonde curls. “How did it go?”

“Got another week to rework the essay. She either gave in because Rose is so charming or because she wants to get rid of me. Maybe both.”

“Your dad is an idiot.” Emerald took one of the cucumbers to let Rose suck on it. “What are you even feeding her? She’s growing so fast.” She leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I want you to stay cute and squishy, just like that.”

“She’s just as charming as I am.”

“She definitely got that from Yang.”

He smirked. Emerald absolutely adored Rose, as much as she claimed not to like children. “You can borrow her if you want to hit on cute girls. She’s a chick magnet.”

“Stop talking like that about your daughter.” She rolled her eyes.

“Hey, I got a free cookie because of her. You gotta use that before she can eat them herself.”

“Worst dad ever.”

“Nah, that was my father.” He smirked and leaned back. Slowly he stared to actually believe that he wasn’t quite as bad.


End file.
